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THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL 

THEORY  FROM  THE  STANDPOINT 

OF  "INSTRUMENTAL"  LOGIC 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED    TO    THE    FACULTY    OF    THE    GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND 
LITERATURE    IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

doctor  of  philosophy 
(department  of  education) 


BY 


DANIEL  AMBROSE  TEAR 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 

1908 


XCbe  laniversiti?  ot  Cbicago 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.   ROCKEFBLLER 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL 

THEORY  FROM  THE  STANDPOINT 

OF  "INSTRUMENTAL"  LOGIC 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED    TO    THE    FACULTY    OF    THE    GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND 

LITERATURE    IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(department  of  education) 


BY 

DANIEL  AMBROSE  TEAR 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 

1908 


^ 


"4M 


CoPTEiGHT  1908  By 
The  Univeksity  of  Chicago 


PubUshed  March  1908 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.  S.  A. 


Of  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 
FROM  THE  STANDPOINT  OF  "INSTRUMENTAL" 
LOGIC 

INTRODUCTION 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  discuss  the  logical  nature  of 
the  process  of  education.  Education  is  taken  to  mean  the  way 
experience  develops,  or  realizes  itself.  A  theory  of  education  is  an 
interpretation  of  this  process  of  self-realization.  Logical  theory  is 
an  account  of  "our  thinking  behavior;"  "thinking"  being  the  con- 
structive movement  in  this  process  of  development.  The  subject- 
matter  of  logic,  then,  is  the  operation  of  thought  in  the  development 
of  experience;  and,  if  this  development  is  education,  the  theory 
of  logic  one  accepts  must  determine  his  theory  of  education. 

This  view  looks  upon  education  as  a  process  continuing  from 
birth  to  death.  While  education  in  its  narrower  sense,  as  synony- 
mous with  instruction,  will  receive  attention,  the  primary  purpose 
is  to  discuss  education  in  its  larger  meaning. 

The  first  part  of  this  paper  will  be  devoted  to  a  brief  outline  of 
the  historical  development  of  "instrumental"  logic,  and  to  an  expo- 
sition of  that  theory  as  worked  out  by  recent  writers  on  the  subject, 
particularly  by  Dr.  Dewey.  No  claim  to  originality  is  made  in  the 
general  logical  view  presented.  The  purpose  has  been  to  present 
the  theory  as  understood  after  a  careful  study  of  available  material. 
It  is  probable  that  the  interpretation  has  not  been  at  all  times  true 
to  the  thought  of  the  authors,  particularly  in  some  minor  phases 
which  have  not  been  fully  developed  in  the  publications  of  the 
writers. 

The  second  part  of  the  paper  will  be  devoted  to  a  discussion 
of  the  educational  theory  which  follows  from  this  theory  of  logic. 
It  is  not  the  primary  purpose  to  indicate  a  detailed  method  of 
instruction,  though  the  mere  statement  of  an  educational  theory 
must  furnish  the  basis  of,  and  indicate  along  broad  lines,  the 
general  method  which  must  be  followed  in  all  education. 

Psychology  is  so  intimately  related  to  both  logic  and  education 
that   it  seems  necessary  to   discuss   quite   fully  the  psychological 

3 


1781G5 


4  THE   LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

nature  of  certain  parts  of  the  problem.     In  both  the  logical  and 
educational   discussions    free   use   will   be   made   of   psychological 

material. 

I 

LOGICAL  THEORY 

In  this  brief  statement  of  logical  theory  only  those  phases  of 
the  subject  will  be  discussed  that  throw  some  light  on  educational 
procedure.  Since  the  time  of  Aristotle,  the  operation  of  thought 
has  received  serious  attention.  Two  general  points  of  view  have 
developed.  One  is  known  as  formal  logic,  the  other  has  been  called 
instrumental  logic.  Formal  logic  treats  of  the  operation  of  thought 
as  carried  on  in  reflective  thinking.  It  takes  thought  as  such  and 
endeavors  to  discover  and  formulate  the  laws  and  principles  of 
accurate  thinking.  The  content  of  the  concepts  with  which  it 
operates  is  regarded  as  given  independently  of  thought's  operation. 
While  formal  logic  may  discuss  the  way  bare  sensations  are  molded 
into  ideas  and  concepts  so  as  to  become  fit  objects  for  thought,  its 
real  concern  is  with  how  truth  may  be  deduced  from  these  concepts 
through  judgment  and  inference. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  term  "instrumental"  is  applied  to  that 
view  of  logic  which  holds  that  thought,  human  thought,  has  a  part 
in  the  actual  constituting  of  reality.  It  investigates  not  merely 
the  concepts  as  given,  but  also  their  genesis  and  how  thought  deter- 
mines the  actual  content  of  these  concepts.  Thought  is  not  looked 
upon  as  engaged  in  reproducing  an  external  world  of  reality,  but  as 
having  a  part  in  the  actual  constituting  of  reality.  Whatever  our 
thinking  may  assume  to  exist  as  exterior  to  and  independent  of 
thought,  instrumental  logic  holds  that  such  assumptions  are  mere 
postulates  and  that  the  content  of  thought,  as  we  know  it,  bears  the 
unmistakable  character  of  thought's  construction. 

This  conception  of  the  creative  character  of  thought  is  not 
new.  Wundt  points  out  that  it  preceded  the  development  of  formal 
logic.  He  says,  "The  Eleatic  and  Platonic  dialectic  are  controlled 
by  it  [thought  as  instrument  in  creating  reality],  and  a  caricature 
of  the  same  meets  us  in  the  fallacious  conclusions  and  dilemmas  of 
the  Sophists."  ^ 

Aristotle  is  the  father  of  formal  logic.  He  took  up  the  prob- 
lem  of   discovering  and    formulating  the   laws   of   thought,    and 

^Logik,  Band  I,  s.  3. 


THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  5 

developed  a  complete  system.  The  Aristotelian  logic  assumed  that 
"objects"  are  given  independently  of  thought,  and  the  intellectual 
processes  were  regarded  as  entirely  dependent  upon  these  objects. 
This  view  of  thought  was  generally  accepted  up  to  the  time  of 
Kant. 

Kant  marks  an  epoch  in  the  evolution  of  thought.  Not  satisfied 
with  the  previous  attempts  of  philosophy,  which  had  failed  to 
remove  the  opposition  between  thought  and  being  but  had  made 
idealism  or  realism  absolute,  Kant  subjected  the  entire  theory  of 
knowledge  to  a  searching  criticism.  As  a  result  of  his  investiga- 
tions, Kant  differentiates  sharply  the  theoretical  reason  from  the 
practical.  On  the  theoretical  side,  in  accepting  phenomena  revealed 
in  sensation  as  real  and  absolute,  and  yet  holding  that  they  cannot 
become  knowledge  except  in  and  through  thought  which  determines 
the  forms  and  conditions  of  their  cognition,  Kant  exalts  thought 
and  makes  it  a  real  and  necessary  factor  in  the  development  of 
knowledge.  While  stoutly  maintaining  the  existence  of  a  world  of 
reality  independent  of  thought,  he  yet  contends  that  phenomena  are 
so  modified  and  determined  by  thought  that  it  is  impossible  to  know 
the  real  character  of  the  thing-in-itself ;  that  the  theoretical  reason 
cannot  go  beyond  phenomena  and  establish  extra-experiential  truth. 
It  is  limited  to  the  sensuous  given. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  Kant's  critique  of  the  practical  reason, 
pure  reason  is  made  to  determine  a  priori  the  will  in  respect  of 
objects.^  In  the  theoretical  reason  truth  is  derived  from  sense 
phenomena;  in  the  practical  reason  there  is  recognized  "a  higher 
source  of  motives  in  which  not  sense  but  reason  is  the  lawgiver."^ 
Here  the  will  is  supreme  and  it  follows  "not  incentives  from  with- 
out, but  obeys,  with  absolute  freedom,  a  higher  practical  principle 
of  the  reason."  ^  From  the  possibility  of  a  moral  law  is  derived 
the  idea  of  freedom;  from  that  of  perfect  virtue  is  borrowed  the 
idea  of  immortality;  from  the  necessary  demand  for  perfect  happi- 
ness follows  the  idea  of  God.^ 

This  recognition  that  phenomena  in  becoming  knowledge  must 
take  on  necessary  forms  of  thought,  that  here  reason  is  limited  to 
sense,  but  that  pure  reason  may  determine  the  will  with  absolute 
freedom,  was  a  revolution  in  epistemology.     Yet  Kant  did  not 

'Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy  (Seeley's  transl.),  pp.  290,  291. 
*  Ibid.,  pp.  296,  297. 


6  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

regard  thought  as  really  creative  in  the  sense  of  actually  constituting 
reality. 

In  the  development  of  Kantian  idealism  by  Fichte,  Schelling, 
and  Hegel,  there  is  the  attempt  to  present  a  world-view  founded 
on  the  "system  of  reason."  Thought  as  the  world-activity  was 
here  supreme. 

Among  modern  logicians  Sigwart's  view  of  the  nature  of 
thought  as  independent  and  self-supporting,  and  his  idea  of  how  the 
concept  of  reality  is  derived  from  thought,  are  particularly  interest- 
ing and  suggestive.  He  says,  "H  we  consider  the  nature  of  thought, 
we  find  that  an  important  part  of  it  is  engaged  in  the  attempt  to 
arrive  at  propositions  which  are  certain  and  universally  valid."  * 
Further,  "From  a  psychological  point  of  view,  everything  which 
the  individual  thinks  may  be  looked  upon  as  necessary,"  but  besides 
this  necessity  "there  is  another  which  springs  entirely  from  the 
contents  and  object  of  thought."  ^  This  "certainty"  and  "universal 
validity"  which  he  makes  the  end  of  thought  is  to  be  found  within 
thought  itself,  and  is  not  grounded  upon  an  external,  independent 
reality.     He  makes  this  point  explicit. 

We  cannot  refute  the  critical  assertion  that  immediately,  and  in  the  first 
instance,  all  our  knowledge  is  something  for  us,  consisting  in  a  system  of 
ideas.  That  there  is  an  Existent  corresponding  to  this  Thought  of  ours  and 
in  accordance  with  it,  is  either  a  blind  belief,  or  the  certainty  must  be  grounded 
upon  a  refutation  of  the  doubt  it  dispels — upon  the  proof  that  doubt  is 
impossible.'  ....  The  proof  rests  upon  a  necessity  in  Thought.  It  may  be 
counted  among  the  surest  results  of  an  analysis  of  our  knowledge  that  every 

assumption  of  an  external  world  is  mediated  by  Thought Thus  except 

by  Thought,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining  whether  we  have  really 
achieved  our  purpose  of  knowing  the  Existent;  the  possibility  of  comparing 
our  knowledge  with  things  as  they  exist  apart  from  our  knowledge  is  forever 
closed  to  us.^  ....  We  may  thus  unhesitatingly  say  that  if  all  we  can  attain 
to  is  necessary  and  universally  valid  Thought,  then  knowledge  of  the  Exist- 
ent is  included  therein.* 

Here  we  find  explicit  recognition  of  the  dependence  of  reality 
as  known  upon  thought.  Sigwart  does  not  deny  the  existence  of  an 
external  world.  In  fact,  he  assumes  such  existence,  and  much  of 
his  discussion  of  logic  is  based  upon  this  assumption.     But  he 

*  Logic  (Dandy's  transl.).  Vol.  I,  p.  i. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  6.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  7. 

» Ibid.,  pp.  6,  7.  *  Ibid.,  p.  8. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  7 

shows  clearly  that  it  is  an  assumption  which  depends  wholly  for 
its  proof  "upon  the  necessity  in  thought."  For  knowledge,  all 
reality  is  the  result  of  the  operation  of  thought. 

Both  Bosanquet  and  Bradley  attempt  to  give  thought  a  genuine 
work  to  do  in  constituting  the  "real  world,"  and  yet  they  retain  the 
concept  of  an  independent  reality. 

Bosanquet  makes  thought  a  "living  function"  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  world  of  reality  as  it  exists  for  any  individual.  This 
world  of  the  individual  is  actually  constituted  by  thought.  This 
character  of  thought  and  its  relation  to  reality  comes  out  in  Bosan- 
quet's  discussion  of  Truth.    He  says, 

If  the  object-matter  of  reality  lay  genuinely  outside  the  system  of  thought, 
not  only  our  analysis,  but  thought  itself  would  be  unable  to  lay  hold  of 
reality.  For  logic  at  all  events,  it  is  a  postulate  that  "the  truth  is  the 
whole."  The  forms  of  thought  have  the  relation  which  is  their  truth  in 
their  power  to  constitute  a  totality.  ....  The  work  of  intellectually  consti- 
tuting that  totality  which  we  call  the  real  world,  is  the  work  of  knowledge.* 

But  Bosanquet  does  not  minimize  the  idea  of  the  existence  of 
an  independent  reality.  Indeed,  he  makes  such  reality,  as  that  got 
through  sense-perception,  the  starting-point  and  core  of  the  indi- 
vidual's real  world.  The  act  in  which  thought  constitutes  for 
itself,  or  "affirms,"  this  real  world  is  the  judgment. 

The  truth,  the  fact,  the  reality,  may  be  considered,  in  relation  to  human 
intelligence,  as  the  content  of  a  single  persistent  and  all-embracing  judg- 
ment, by  which  every  individual  intelligence  affirms  the  ideas  that  form  its 
knowledge  to  be  true  of  the  world  which  is  brought  home  to  it  as  real  by 
sense-perception [And]  The  real  world  for  every  individual  is  emphati- 
cally his  world;  an  extension  and  determination  of  his  present  perception, 
which  perception  is  to  him  not  indeed  reality  as  such,  but  his  point  of  contact 
with  reality  as  such.^' 

The  question  that  concerns  us  here  is :  In  what  sense  and  to  what 
extent  does  Bosanquet  make  thought  really  instrumental?  The 
creative  character  of  thought  may  be  looked  at  from  two  points  of 
view.  First,  To  what  extent  is  thought  efficient  and  really  creative 
in  establishing  and  organizing  this  world  of  reality  as  it  actually 
exists  for  human  intelligence?  Second,  Does  thought  really  have 
a  part  in  constituting  the  real  world  as  such ;  or,  to  put  it  otherwise, 

'Logic,  Vol.  I,  pp.  2,  z  (italics  mine). 
^•JWd.,  p.  3. 


8  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

is  there  a  reality  as  such  which  is,  in  itself,  in  no  way  affected  by 
thought,  but  which  thought  merely  copies  or  reproduces? 

The  above  quotations  prove,  unquestionably,  that  Bosanquet 
would  answer  the  first  question  affirmatively.  The  world,  as  we 
know  it,  is  constructed  by  thought.  While  he  makes  contact  with 
reality  through  sense-perception  the  starting-point  of  thought,  and 
the  whole  real  world  for  the  individual  an  extension,  by  means  of 
judgment,  of  this  immediate  intuition,  yet  this  reality  got  so  at  first 
hand  is  "indefinite,"  a  "mere  aspect,"  until  determined  and  organ- 
ized by  thought. 

As  to  the  other  question,  Bosanquet  ignores  the  point.  Some 
expressions  would  indicate  that  thought  merely  discovers  what  is 
already  there;  but  the  whole  attitude  of  his  discussion  leads  to  the 
conclusion  that,  for  him,  reality  as  such,  apart  from  thought,  is 
not  the  proper  subject  of  logical  discussion ;  that  what  logic  is  con- 
cerned with  is  our  world,  and  that  world  is  constituted  by  thought. 

Bradley  attacks  directly  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  thought 
to  reality.  He  insists  that  thought  is  but  an  external  tool,  and  yet 
he  says  that  reality  actually  develops  in  our  thinking.  This  con- 
tradiction comes  out  in  his  discussion  of  judgment.  He  defines  the 
judgment  proper  as  "the  act  which  refers  an  ideal  content  (recog- 
nized as  such)  to  a  reality  beyond  the  act.",  ^^  This  judgment  always 
refers,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  present  reality.  As  to  the  effect 
of  thought  on  our  conclusions,  and,  hence,  on  the  constitution  of 
our  real  world,  Bradley  says. 

It  is  assumed  that,  whatever  in  our  reason  may  be  arbitrary,  yet  at  least 
the  conclusions  must  follow  from  the  premises  naturally  and  necessarily, 
without  altering  or  straining  or  even  addition.  If  we  can  be  shown  of  our 
own  free  choice  to  have  forged  one  link  in  the  chain  of  inference,  then  the 

connection   snaps   and   the   ends    fall   apart [And]    An   apparatus    of 

proof  has  been  compared  to  a  scaffolding,  which  is  removed  when  the  edifice 
of  reason  has  been  built;  yet,  if  we  have  but  placed  the  parts  in  conjunction, 
there  is  nothing  which  will  hold  when  the  scaffolding  is  gone."* 

This  shows  conclusively  that  here  Bradley  looks  upon  thought  as 
wholly  external. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  Bradley's  logic.  He  makes  the 
statement  that  "reality  develops,"  and  this  development  appears  to 

^ Logic,  p.  10.  "Ibid.,  p.  454. 


THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  9 

take  place  through  thinking  and  because  of  thinking.  In  discussing 
the  essence  of  reasoning,  he  says, 

....  at  bottom,  and  in  a  struggling  way,  reasoning  is  really  a  self- 
development.  Throughout  the  process  our  subject  is  developed,  and  again  to 
some  extent  it  develops  itself."  [Again,]  Reality  appears,  ....  as  possess- 
ing an  attribute  or  group  of  attributes,  which  is  given  with  two  separate  sets 
of  qualities.  And  in  the  result  this  basis  through  its  own  activity  becomes 
explicit.  We  may  say  here,  as  eversrwhere,  that  the  real  subject,  implicit  at 
the  start,  and  active  in  the  middle,  shows  itself  at  the  end  by  a  development 

of  some  latent  relation  or  quality,  which  it  claims  as  an  attribute And 

thus,  in  a  certain  sense,  the  movement  of  the  subject  has  been  a  self- 
development;  ....  [and]  if  our  process  is  not  to  end  in  ruin,  the  apparatus 
we  have  used  (that  is,  scaffolding)  must  be  simply  a  prop,  supported  on  which 
the  argument  has  grown  up,  till  strong  enough  at  last  to  support  its  own 
fruit  and  stand  by  itself." 

Here  Bradley  presents  a  wholly  different  view  of  thought.  This 
idea  of  reasoning  being  a  self -development,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  "real  subject"  (that  is  the  reality)  as  "active"  and  "develop- 
ing," would  seem  unquestionably  to  make  thought  instrumental  in 
character.  But  in  the  working  out  of  this  point  of  view,  Bradley 
leaves  much  to  be  desired. 

These  idealistic  logical  theories  of  Sigwart,  Bosanquet,  and 
Bradley  are  in  striking  contrast  to  the  theories  of  J.  S.  Mill  and 
Wundt,  each  of  whom  develops  a  theory  of  logic  based  on  the  prac- 
tical methods  of  scientific  investigation. 

J.  S.  Mill  defines  logic  as  "the  science  which  treats  of  the 
operations  of  the  human  understanding  in  the  pursuit  of  truth."  ^^ 
By  "truth"  Mill  seems  to  mean  actual  determinable  experiences. 
There  is  the  assumption  that  facts  of  experience  have  systematic 
connection,  and  that  this  may  become  known.  It  is  the  business  of 
logic  to  investigate  the  process  by  which  the  mind  may  come  into 
possession  of  this  knowledge. 

Attention  is  called  to  two  important  characteristics  of  Mill's 
logic.  First,  it  is  a  "logic  of  experience."  He  calls  it  the  "logic 
of  truth"  as  opposed  to  "formal  logic"  which  he  calls  the  "logic 

"'Ibid.,  pp.  452,  453. 

^*  Ibid.,  p.  454   (italics  mine). 

"'System  of  Logic,  p.  3. 


lO  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL   THEORY 

of  consistency."     Logic  investigates   "truth,"  and  this  truth,   for 
Mill,  is  derived  from  experience.     He  says, 

Truths  are  known  in  two  ways;  some  are  known  directly  and  of  them- 
selves; some  through  the  medium  of  other  truth  (which  can,  of  course,  be 
reduced  to  direct  intuition).  The  former  are  the  subject  of  Intuition,  or 
Consciousness ;  the  latter,  of  Inference." ....  [Again,]  ....  truth  can  only 
be  successfully  pursued  by  drawing  inferences  from  experience." 

Mill's  whole  elaborate  discussion  is  an  attempt  to  get  away  from 
the  abstraction  and  idealism  that  characterize  previous  logic.  He 
recognizes  that  thinking  is  practical,  and  so  would  develop  a 
theory  of  logic  derived  from  the  actual  operation  of  thought  in 
the  scientific  investigation  of  truth. 

The  other  characteristic  is  Mill's  attitude  toward  the  source  of 
knowledge.  The  primary,  irreducible  data  of  experience  are  the 
states  of  consciousness — sensations,  feelings,  volitions. 

....  the  best  thinkers  are  now  for  the  most  part  agreed  that  all  we  can 
know  of  matter  is  the  sensations  which  it  gives  us,  and  the  order  of  the 

occurrence  of  those  sensations [And,]  All  attributes,  therefore,  are  to 

us  nothing  but  either  our  sensations  and  other  states  of  feeling,  or  some- 
thing inextricably  included  therein " 

Mill  assumes  the  existence  of  external  objects  and  the  powers 
or  properties  by  which  those  objects  excite  mental  activity,  but  says, 

These  latter  (at  least)  being  included  rather  in  compliance  with  common 
opinion  and  because  their  existence  is  taken  for  granted  in  the  common 
language  from  which  I  cannot  prudently  deviate,  than  because  the  recognition 
of  such  powers  or  properties  as  real  existences  appears  to  be  warranted  by 
a  sound  philosophy." 

What  Mill  is  sure  of  are  the  facts  of  experience.  Thought,  then, 
in  its  widest  sense,  as  ideational  activity,  would  seem  to  be  respon- 
sible for  the  whole  data  of  knowledge.  This  would  seem  to  compel 
the  conclusion  that  thought  is  "instrumental"  in  determining 
knowledge ;  not  in  an  external  way,  as  the  means  by  which  we  arrive 
at  truth  that  is  true  independent  of  thought,  but  by  actually  having 
a  part  in  the  development  of  reality  itself.  Mill,  however,  seems  not 
to  have  drawn  this  conclusion,  nor  to  have  been  conscious  of  the 
logical  outcome  of  his  position. 

This  general  point  of  view  is  worked  out  more  fully  by  Wundt. 

^'System  of  Logic,  p.  3.  ^ Ibid.,  p.  48. 

"Ibid.,  p.  137.  ^' Ibid.,  p.  49. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  II 

He  defines  logic  as  the  science  which  has  to  give  an  account  of 
those  laws  of  thought  that  are  efficient  in  the  investigation  of 
truth.^**  It  occupies  a  position  between  psychology  and  the  other 
theoretical  sciences.  Logic  "leads  back"  on  the  one  hand  to  a 
psychological  examination  of  the  actual  course  of  thought,  and 
"looks  forward"  on  the  other  to  "universal  knowledge  and  the  way 
of  procedure  of  scientific  thought."  Its  particular  problem  is  to 
investigate  and  establish  the  actually  operative  laws  of  thought  as 
these  laws  reveal  themselves  in  the  whole  range  of  scientific 
investigation. 

This  view  of  logic  Wundt  opposes,  on  the  one  hand,  to  formal 
logic,  and,  on  the  other,  to  what  he  calls  metaphysical,  or  dialectic, 
logic.  By  the  latter,  he  means  that  view  of  logic  which  makes 
thought  an  instrument  {Werkzeug)  "which  gives  to  knowledge  not 
merely  its  form  but  produces  out  of  itself  also  the  content  of  the 
same."  ^i 

Wundt  objects  to  this  "metaphysical  logic,"  particularly  because 
it  sets  up  a  system  of  thought  that  offers  no  aid  to  and  has  no 
connection  with  the  scientific  investigation  of  truth.  Furtliermore, 
he  seems  not  to  grant  to  thought  any  part  in  the  creation  of  reality, 
when  he  says:  "Never  can  it  (thought)  gain  any  other  significance 
than  that  of  copying  the  objects  by  which  thought  is  conscious  of 
having  met  all  demands  which  reality  imposes  on  its  copying 
activity."  ^^  But  a  further  examination  of  Wundt's  philosophy  leads 
to  a  different  view  of  the  function  of  thought.  Wundt  recognizes 
experience  as  the  fundamental  ground  of  all  knowledge.  Out  of 
experience  there  develops  both  object  and  subject.  Historically, 
this  antithesis  appears  in  the  course  of  an  individual's  development; 
it  is  not  there  at  the  beginning. 

....  the  expressions  outer  and  inner  experience  do  not  indicate  different 
objects,  but  different  points  of  view  from  which  we  take  up  the  consideration 
and  scientific  treatment  of  a  unitary  experience.  We  are  naturally 
led  to  these  points  of  view,  because  every  concrete  experience  immedi- 
ately divides  into  two  factors;  into  a  content  presented  to  us,  and  our  appre- 
hension of  this  content.** [And,]  Even  the  use  of  the  terms  object  and 

subject  in  this  connection  must  be  regarded  as  the  application  to  the  first  stage 

'^Logik,  Band  I,  s.  i. 

''Ibid.,  s.  3.  ''Ibid.,  s,  6. 

**  Outlines  of  Psychology  (Judd's  transl.),  PP.  2,  3. 


12  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

of   experience,   of   distinctions   which   are   reached   only   through   developed 
logical  reflection.^ 

If  object  and  subject  arise  out  of  a  "unitary  experience"  and 
"through  developed  logical  reflection,"  thought  must  have  an 
important  and  fundamental  part  in  determining  our  conceptions  of 
reality.  Thought,  from  this  point  of  view,  is  responsible  for  my 
reality;  it  comes  to  me  through  my  thinking.  To  still  contend  that 
thought  is  a  mere  "copying  activity"  would  seem  to  be  a  plain 
contradiction. 

In  the  subjective  field  Wundt  seems  to  regard  thought  as  really 
instrumental  when  he  says, 

None  of  the  mental  sciences  [philology,  history,  political  science,  etc.] 
employ  the  abstractions  and  hypothetical  supplementary  concepts  of  natural 
science;  quite  otherwise,  they  all  accept  ideas  and  the  accompanying  subjective 
activities  as  immediate  reality.'^ 

In  the  domain  of  these  mental  activities  Wundt  recognizes,  in 
the  rise  of  "new  attributes,"  the  presence  of  a  principle  of  "creative 
syntheses;"  the  actual  evolving  of  "qualities"  and  "values"  that 
cannot  be  derived  from  the  analysis  of  the  component  elements. 
He  says, 

Not  only  do  the  elements  united  by  apperceptive  synthesis  gain,  in  the 
aggregate  idea  which  results  from  their  combination,  a  new  significance  which 
they  did  not  have  in  their  isolated  state,  but,  what  is  of  still  greater  impor- 
tance, the  aggregate  idea  itself  is  a  new  psychical  content  made  possible,  to 
be  sure,  by  the  elements  but  by  no  means  contained  in  these  elements.** 

This  definite  recognition  of  the  creative  power  of  mental  activity, 
when  taken  in  connection  with  the  activity  of  thought  which  is 
admitted  to  lie  back  of  and  condition  the  rise  of  the  concepts 
object  and  subject,  would  seem  to  commit  Wundt  to  the  theory 
that  thought  is  fundamentally  and  ,  essentially  instrumental  in 
character. 

The  theories  here  briefly  outlined  show  how  these  writers  have 
attempted  to  explain  the  concepts  of  both  matter  and  thought  so  as 
to  satisfy  actual  experience.  In  the  movement  variously  styled  radi- 
cal empiricism,  pragmatism,  or  humanism  (the  fundamental  thought 
is  the  same),  we  have  the  most  recent  contributions  to  this 
problem.     From  the  standpoint  of  this  "pragmatic"  development 

''*  Outlines  of  Psychology   (Judd's  transl.),  p.  5. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  3  j(italics  mine).  ^  Ibid,,  p.  364. 


THE   LOGICAL  BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  1 3 

the  function  of  thought  is  essentially  and  immanently  instrumental. 
As  the  theory  of  education  outlined  in  Part  II  is  based  on  this 
general  point  of  view,  a  brief  exposition  of  this  type  of  instru- 
mental logic  follows.  The  purpose  is,  particularly,  to  set  forth 
those  characteristics  that  have  a  bearing  on  educational  theory. 
A  number  of  writers  have  contributed  to  the  development  of  this 
logical  theory,  but  it  has  been  worked  out  most  thoroughly  by  Dr. 
Dewey  in  his  Studies  in  Logical  Theory.  To  him  more  than  any 
other  writer  is  due  the  following  interpretation. 

From  this  point  of  view  of  instrumental  logic  there  arise  in 
ordinary  everyday  experience  disturbed  situations  which  do  not 
readily  adjust  themselves.  This  disturbance  is  due  to  the  failure  of 
habitual  ways  of  reacting.  Conditions  arise  which  the  old  habits, 
the  old  attitudes,  the  old  ideas,  are  unable  to  assimilate  and  harmo- 
nize. There  is  a  state  of  tension.  But  this  obstruction  of  activity 
must  be  overcome ;  it  is  the  essence  of  life  to  be  active.  There  is  an 
effort  made  to  readjust  the  situation  so  that  the  broken  co-ordina- 
tions may  be  brought  into  harmonious  relation  and  normal  activity 
resumed.  The  first  effort  usually  fails.  There  may  be  a  long 
period  of  wandering,  of  experimenting,  of  reflecting,  before  suc- 
cess is  attained.  During  this  period  of  tension,  one  is  conscious, 
often  intensely  so,  of  the  disturbed  conditions.  When  a  satisfactory 
readjustment  is  finally  made,  the  whole  affair  tends  to  drop  out  of 
consciousness  and  attention  is  given  to  other  problems.  This  whole 
situation — the  break  in  habitual  ways  of  reacting,  the  tentative 
movements  toward  readjustment,  and  the  final  successful  co-ordina- 
tion— is  the  thought-situation.     Dr.  Dewey  says: 

It  is  the  whole  dynamic  experience  with  its  qualitative  and  pervasive 
identity  of  value,  and  its  inner  distraction,  its  elements  at  odds  with  each 
other,  in  tension  against  each  other,  contending  each  for  its  proper  placing 
and  relationship,  that  generates  the  thought-situation." 

This  whole  readjustive  movement  in  which  antagonistic  and 
unrelated  factors  are  brought  into  harmony  is  the  thought  process 
itself.     Thinking  is  just  such  readjusting. 

The  field  of  thought  is  the  field  of  human  interests.  Thought 
has  to  do  with  just  these  everyday  experiences  of  life.  We  think 
about  our  physical  needs,  our  social  relations,  our  religious  con- 
victions.    One  would  build  a  house,  obtain  political   preferment, 

"Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  p.  38. 


14  THE   LOGICAL  BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

or  perform  a  religious  duty.  And  each  of  these  may  mean  stren- 
uous effort,  careful  planning,  periods  of  doubt  and  delay  and  oppo- 
sition; final  success  may  follow  only  after  long  and  strenuous 
activity.  Thought  is  the  instrument  or  tool  by  means  of  which  suc- 
cess comes.  Such  experiences  of  everyday  life  are  antecedent  to 
thought  in  the  sense  that,  taken  at  any  point,  thought  has  grown  out 
of  such  commonplace  affairs.  So  long  as  everything  goes  on 
smoothly,  there  is  no  thinking.  It  is  when  there  is  conflict,  when 
one  does  not  know  just  what  to  do,  when  there  is  doubt,  hesitancy, 
perplexity,  that  thought  gets  in  its  work.  To  overcome  a  disturbed 
situation  within  these  life  interests  is  the  immediate  motive  to 
thought  activity. 

This  thought  activity  involves  consciousness.  Habit,  so  far  as  it 
is  automatic,  takes  care  of  itself,  as  it  were.  There  is  no  need  of 
consciously  attending  to  its  operations.  But  our  entire  conscious 
world,  sensations,  perceptions,  conceptions,  objects,  images,  ideas, 
that  is,  our  entire  physical  world,  in  so  far  as  that  comes  to  con- 
sciousness, and  our  entire  thought  world — all  have  their  existence 
in  the  thought-situation.  All  these  things  exist  for  me,  if  they 
exist  for  me  at  all,  as  conscious  existences.  When  for  any  reason 
co-ordinations  fail,  the  factors  involved  in  the  situation  come  to 
consciousness.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  there  could  be  a  sensation, 
a  perception,  or  any  object  of  thought,  unless  there  were  some  need 
of  attending  to  it.  The  presence  of  a  sensation  means  the  failure  of 
given  co-ordinations  to  meet  conditions  imposed  upon  them.  The 
point  of  "fracture,"  the  point  needing  attention,  is  the  point  that 
will  come  most  clearly  into  consciousness ;  it  will  be  in  the  focus  of 
attention.  The  other  data  will  come  to  consciousness  in  so  far  as 
they  are  related  to  this  disturbance,  and  especially,  in  so  far  as  they 
may  become  means  for  the  solution  of  the  problem  generated. 

It  was  stated  above  that  the  physical  world  and  the  thought 
world  exist  in  the  thought-situation.  The  truth  is  that  our  experi- 
ence, as  it  comes  to  consciousness  in  the  thought-situation,  polarizes 
into  an  "external"  physical  world  and  a  "subjective"  thought  world. 
Certain  data  are  looked  upon  as  peculiar  to  the  thinker  and  as 
having  no  existence  outside  his  thought.  Other  data  are  believed  to 
exist  independent  of  and  apart  from  the  thinker.  Still  other  data 
are  uncertain  and  doubtful.  One  has  not  yet  determined  whether  to 
regard  them  as  really  true  or  as  merely  subjective.     The  possible 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  1 5 

shifting  of  this  third  class  of  data  gives  the  clue  to  the  interpretation 
of  all.  A  doubtful  datum  may  come  to  be  regarded,  with  further 
experience,  as  a  positive  fact  and  true  for  all  thinkers.  The  law 
of  gravitation  and  other  physical  laws  are  instances  of  such  data 
that  have  come  to  be  regarded  as  absolute  fact.  On  the  other  hand, 
doubtful  facts  may  move  in  the  other  direction  and  be  looked  upon 
finally  as  mere  ideas.  But  this  is  not  all.  What  has  been  regarded 
as  absolute  fact  may  become  doubtful  and  finally  relegated  to  the 
realm  of  ideas.  Or,  what  was  thought  to  be  mere  idea  becomes 
doubtful  fact  and  finally  is  accepted  as  absolute  existence.  The 
criterion  for  the  acceptance  or  rejection  of  a  given  datum  as  law 
or  fact  is  a  practical  one.  A  law  is  valid  because  it  is  found  to  be 
unfailing  in  its  operation.  A  fact  is  true  because  we  can  always 
count  upon  it ;  we  have  learned  how  to  react  toward  it.  So  long  as 
it  meets  the  practical  demands  made  upon  it,  it  is  a  fixture.  In  so 
far  as  it  fails,  we  modify  our  conception  of  it  and  it  ceases  to  be 
for  us  just  what  it  was.  The  whole  meaning  of  "object"  and  "sub- 
ject," of  "fact"  and  "idea,"  of  "physical"  and  "mental,"  is  deter- 
mined by  the  character  of  our  experience ;  and  as  this  experience  is 
being  continually  added  to,  as  new  content  is  being  continually 
experienced,  so  the  interpretation  of  any  datum  is  liable  to  shift  in 
the  getting  of  a  new  point  of  view. 

It  is  believed  that  the  above  exposition,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  true 
to  the  general  thought  of  the  logical  theory  from  the  standpoint  of 
which  this  paper  is  written.  There  are  certain  characteristics  that 
ought  to  be  discussed.     First  is  the  category  of  activity. 

Change,  activity,  development,  are  fundamental  to  this  theory 
of  logic.  Activity  appears  as  tendencies  to  action,  a  striving  to  pass  I 
beyond  present  conditions  and  limitations.  The  word  "impulse"  is 
sometimes  used  to  express  this  fundamental  tendency  to  movement. 
Everyone  recognizes  that  the  basic  characteristic  of  reflex  action, 
instinct,  desires,  motives,  and  the  will  is  the  impulse  to  act.  But, 
because  so  often  thought  does  not  immediately  terminate  in  overt 
activity,  one  tends  to  overlook  the  impulsive  character  of  the  idea. 
It  is  now  commonly  agreed  among  psychologists  that  the  idea  is  in 
its  very  nature  impulsive.  It  is  a  tool  for  the  furtherance  of  con- 
duct.   Professor  James  says,  in  discussing  voluntary  action : 

The  first  point  to  start  from,  in  understanding  voluntary  action,  is  the 
fact  that  consciousness   is   in  its  very  nature  impulsive.     We  do  not  first 


l6  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

have  a  sensation  or  thought,  and  then  have  to  add  something  dynamic  to  it 
to  get  a  movement.  Every  pulse  of  feeling  which  we  have  is  the  correlate 
of  some  neural  activity  that  is  already  on  its  way  to  instigate  a  movement. 
Our  sensations  and  thoughts  are  but  cross-sections,  as  it  were,  of  currents 
whose  essential  consequence  is  motion.** 

It  seems  to  be  the  very  nature  of  the  life  process  to  pass  beyond 
its  present  state  and  become  something  different.  Stout  says :  "This 
tendency  [to  pass  beyond]  is  not  only  a  fact,  but  an  experience; 
and  the  peculiar  mode  of  being  conscious,  which  constitutes  the 
experience,  is  called  conation."  ^®  This  conative  tendency,  in  its 
higher  forms  as  realized  in  man,  is  the  will.  Indeed,  the  term  "will" 
in  its  widest  significance  is  sometimes  used  to  cover  this  whole 
fundamental  tendency  to  activity. 

Activity  looks  forward.  It  is  responsible  for  the  tension,  the 
problem,  which  arises  in  the  failure  of  habits  to  function.  It  begets 
a  tentative  movement  which,  persisting,  finally  readjusts  the  situa- 
tion. It  is  this  tendency  to  movement  that  keeps  life  going;  that 
prevents  the  organism  from  becoming  fixed  and  static.  Because 
of  this  activity  there  is  growth. 

Another  fundamental  category  of  experience  is  habit.  By  habit 
is  meant  the  tendency  of  experience  to  repeat  itself.  The  living 
organism  tends  to  do  the  sort  of  thing  it  has  done  before.  It 
is  but  a  bundle  of  habits.  It  is  what  it  is  because  of  past  experience. 
Reflexes,  instincts,  attitudes — all  tendencies  to  activity  in  any  spe- 
cific way,  whether  well  defined  or  not,  are  due  to  habit. 

Habit  thus  constitutes  the  entire  background  of  experience;  the 
experience  possible  at  any  given  time  depends  upon  how  far  previ- 
ous experience  has  become  organized  and  preserved  in  some  form  of 
habit.  Perceptions,  conceptions,  images,  ideas,  represent  experience 
become  habitual.  Habit  determines  not  only  what  we  shall  be  cogni- 
zant of  but  it  also  determines  how  we  shall  deal  with  any  given  bit  of 
experience.  The  only  way  we  can  deal  with  present  experience  is 
the  way  past  experience  has  taught  us ;  our  habits  are  the  tools, 
and  the  only  tools,  with  which  we  have  to  work.  Consequently,  we 
always  approach  a  problem  predisposed  toward  certain  ways  of 
handling  it.     We  would  be  absolutely  fair  and  impartial,  but  the 

**  Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  p.  426. 
*"  Manual  of  Psychology,  p.  63. 


THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  1 7 

extent  of  our  impartiality  is  limited  by  the  narrowness  of  our 
experience. 

The  function  of  habit  is  to  preserve  the  valuable  experiences  of 
the  race  and  the  individual.  Those  forms  of  activity  which  are 
repeated  again  and  again  tend  to  become  fixed  and  correlated;  the 
life  process  taken  at  any  point  exhibits  a  vast  system  of  co-ordi- 
nations more  or  less  stable  in  their  reactions.  These  habits  are  the 
basis  of  activity.  They  are  the  material  upon  which  and  with  which 
life  builds.  As  a  co-ordination  becomes  habitual  it  tends  to  drop 
out  of  consciousness,  and  permits  attention  to  be  directed  to  other 
problems.  Habit  relieves  thought,  economizes  energy,  reduces 
fatigue,  and  gives  skill  and  rapidity  to  all  forms  of  reaction. 

The  habits  at  any  period  will  suffice  for  that  period  in  so  far  as 
old  conditions  persist.  But  new  situations  arise ;  situations  in  which 
old  habits  and  co-ordinations  fail  to  meet  the  demand.  There 
follows  a  more  or  less  complete  breakdown.  This  breakdown  occurs 
in  all  forms  of  human  activity,  in  the  practical  as  well  as  in  the 
theoretical.  It  exhibits  the  failure  of  present  points  of  view,  theo- 
ries, associations,  customs,  or  co-ordinations — that  is,  habits  by 
whatever  name  they  are  called — to  meet  the  needs  of  the  moment. 

The  question  naturally  arises  as  to  why  it  is  that  in  time  the 
organism  does  not  become  static  through  the  complete  accommoda- 
tion of  life  to  its  conditions.     On  this  point  Professor  Moore  says: 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  habit  must  be  regarded  as  somehow  developing 
its  own  interruptions.  And,  after  all,  this  would  not  seem  to  be  such  a 
difficult  conception.  It  is  scarcely  more  than  the  commonplace  notion,  the 
philosophical  significance  of  which  Hegel  perhaps  first  pointed  out,  that 
activity  is  conceived  as  constantly  producing  new  conditions  of  its  further 
on-going;  that  in  activity  there  must  be  a  constant  reorganization  of  the 
results  of  the  activity  back  into  the  process.'" 

Bearing  on  the  same  point  Professor  Baldwin  says: 
An  organism  accommodates  itself,  or  learns  new  adjustments,  simply  by 
exercising  the  movements  which  it  already  has,  its  habits,  in  a  heightened  or 
excessive  way;  the  accommodation  is  in  each  case  simply  the  result  and  fruit 
of  the  habit  itself  which  is  exercised [Also,]  Each  such  accommoda- 
tion is  reached  simply  in  the  ordinary  routine  of  habit,  and  is  its  outcome.'^ 

'^Existence,  Meaning,  and  Reality,  "Decennial  Publications,"  The  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  42;  p,  16  of  reprint. 

^^ Mental  Development:  Methods  and  Processes,  pp.  217,  218  (italics 
mine). 

/^  Of  THt 

fl.TilVERSlTY 

\  OF 


l8  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

From  the  point  of  view  of  both  these  writers,  then,  it  is  the  very 
nature  of  the  life  process  to  beget  its  own  interruptions.  Experi- 
ence, new  experience,  is  the  normal  condition. 

But  as  life  does  not  become  static,  as  habits  continually  suffer 
more  or  less  extensive  breakdowns,  so  it  is  the  nature  of  life  to 
readjust  itself  to  meet  new  conditions.  There  is  continual  oscilla- 
tion: a  period  of  comparatively  uninterrupted  activity  followed  by 
a  more  or  less  serious  disturbance ;  this  is  readjusted  and  a  compara- 
tively quiescent  period  follows.  In  the  breakdown,  there  is  a  tend- 
ency for  the  old  habits  to  assimilate  the  new  conditions ;  that  is,  the 
old  ways  of  acting  would  persist.  If  this  is  impossible,  a  recon- 
structive movement  follows,  the  old  habits  being  both  the  material 
readjusted  and  the  tools  of  readjustment.  The  final  successful 
co-ordination  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  a  compromise  between 
these  old  habits.  A  better  statement  is  that  a  new  co-ordination  is 
formed  that  includes  within  itself  the  conflicting  factors.  The  old 
habits  have  not  been  eliminated  but  they  have  been  "trimmed 
down"  so  as  to  fit  into  the  larger  co-ordinations.  The  statement  is 
sometimes  made,  and  truly,  that  life  grows  from  the  simple  to  the 
complex.  There  is  just  this  sort  of  growing  complexity  going  on 
continually. 

Habit,  then,  has  a  twofold  nature;  habits  are  formed  and  habits 
are  broken.  And  the  breaking  of  habits  would  seem  to  be  just  as 
much  a  "habit"  of  life  as  the  forming  of  habits.  The  formation  of 
habits  means  preservation  of  that  which  is  valuable;  their  break- 
down and  subsequent  reorganization  means  growth,  development, 
expansion. 

This  whole  reconstructive  movement  which  takes  place  on  the 
breakdown  of  habit  and  which  reorganizes  the  disconnected  fac- 
tors into  a  larger,  more  comprehensive  co-ordination  is  the  thinking 
activity.  Habit  and  thought  represent  the  two  poles  of  the  life  process. 
Thought  means  growth ;  habit,  preservation.  Professor  Moore  says : 
....  activity  in  any  final  sense  must  include  both  a  mechanical  and  a 
reconstructing  function.  As  habit  constitutes  the  mechanical,  the  conserving, 
materializing  function,  so  the  idea  is  the  radical  reconstructing  function  in 
activity.  Habit  and  thought  are  thus  constituent  poles  of  experience.  As 
such,  neither  can  be  defined  apart  from  the  other.  Each  limits  the  other  in 
every  particular  case,  but  neither  can  be  regarded  as  "the  ultimate"  out  of 
which  the  other  is  absolutely  evolved.'" 

^Existence,   Meaning,   and   Reality,  pp.    16,    17    (reprint). 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  I9 

Habit  and  thought,  then,  are  absolutely  correlative.  There 
could  be  no  thinking  without  habit ;  the  formation  of  habit  requires 
thought;  it  would  seem  that  the  two  have  evolved  together. 

In  the  discussion  so  far  no  distinction  has  been  made  between 
reflective  and  unreflective  thought.  In  reflective  thought  the 
object  of  our  thinking  is  our  own  past  experience.  It  is  when  one 
consciously  goes  over  his  experience  and  readjusts,  or  attempts  to 
readjust,  a  disturbed  situation  that  thought  is  called  reflective.  Un- 
reflective thought  precedes  and  accompanies  reflective  thought; 
accompanies  it,  that  is,  in  the  sense  that  the  thought  of  the  adult  is 
in  part  unreflective.    Sigwart  says : 

As  soon  as  the  individual  begins  to  reflect  upon  his  inner  activity  he 
finds  that  he  is  already  engaged  in  various  kinds  of  Thought;  he  can  have  no 
immediate  knowledge  of  its  beginning  nor  of  its  development  out  of  simpler 
and  more  primitive  activities.  Only  by  means  of  a  difficult  psychological 
analysis  of  Thought,  as  we  find  it  at  work,  can  we  discover  its  particular 
factors  and  the  faculties  which  give  rise  to  it,  and  thus  form  some  idea  of 
the  laws  of  its  unconscious  growth.'* 

The  child  comes  into  the  world  endowed  with  certain  well- 
developed  modes  of  reaction;  such  are  the  reflexes  and  instincts. 
Some  of  these  are  so  perfectly  adjusted  to  his  surroundings  that  there 
seems  to  be  no  need  for  thought.  The  activity  is  unconscious.  But 
in  his  early  years  the  child  meets  innumerable  difficulties;  there  is 
abundant  occasion  for  thought;  there  is  thought.  But  the  child  is 
engaged  in  what  he  is  doing.  His  experience  has  not  yet  polarized 
into  "knower"  and  objects  "known."  It  is  only  with  years  that  he 
comes  consciously  to  turn  back  and  "reflect"  upon  his  past  experi- 
ence. This  "unreflective"  thought  is  the  thought  of  infancy  and 
early  childhood,  but  it  is  not  confined  to  this.  The  thought  of  the 
savage,  the  half -civilized  man,  and  the  mass  of  civilized  peoples  is 
largely  of  the  unreflective  type.  Indeed,  much  of  the  thought  of  every 
man  cannot  be  called  "reflective."  He  is  intent  on  the  end  to  be 
reached ;  so  long  as  the  activity  absorbs  him  and,  especially,  so  long 
as  he  meets  no  serious  difficulty  in  adjusting  means  to  ends,  his 
thought  does  not  come  under  the  reflective  type.  While  reflective 
thought  is  the  great  tool  of  growth,  unreflective  thought  controls 
the  minor  readjustments.  Here  habit  is  powerful;  but  not  all  pow- 
erful, for  there  is  some  thought;  there  is  more  or  less  readjustment, 

^  Logic,  Vol.  I,  p.  2. 


20  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL   THEORY 

but  it  does  not  rise  to  the  level  of  reflective  thinking.  There  are, 
then,  three  stages,  or  phases,  into  which  activity  might  be  divided: 
that  of  purely  habitual  action,  that  of  unreflective  thought,  and  that 
of  reflective  thought. 

But  the  great  instrument  of  human  development  is  reflective 
thought.  The  particular  form  of  thought's  operation  is  called 
judgment.  In  reflective  thought  the  judgment  becomes  explicit. 
In  each  judgment  some  discordant  factor  of  our  experience  is  taken 
up  and  readjusted  by  identifying  it  with,  or  relating  it  to,  some 
other  factor,  or  the  whole,  with  the  result  that  harmony  is  re-estab- 
lished. That  to  which  readjustment  is  made  is  the  subject  of  the 
judgment;  that  which  is  identified  with,  or  related  to,  the  subject 
and  which  serves  to  "explain"  it  is  the  predicate. 

The  predicate  of  the  judgment,  then,  is  the  co-ordination  which 
explains,  or  harmonizes,  the  situation.  Many  possible  predicates 
may  be  suggested  and  tested  before  the  right  one  appears.  A  pro- 
posed solution  of  a  problem  is  called  a  hypothesis,  and  the  char- 
acteristic tentative  movement  in  reconstruction  is  just  the  testing  of 
this  hypothesis.  This  view  of  the  thought  process  and  the  con- 
sequent importance  given  to  hypotheses  are  at  variance  with  the 
ordinary  conception  of  reality,  judgment,  and  hypothesis.  The 
ordinary  view  regards  reality  as  existing  distinct  and  independent  of 
the  knowing  individual;  and  a  fundamental  problem  which  tradi- 
tional logic  must  solve  is :  How  is  reality  known  ?  This  theory  of 
logic  takes  no  account  of  such  an  external,  independent  reality. 
Reality  exists  within  experience,  and  this  is  the  reality  with  which 
thought  operates.  Such  categorical  judgments,  then,  as  "This  is 
my  home,"  given  by  Bosanquet,  where  "this"  is  held  to  indicate  con- 
tact with  an  external  reality,  have  no  place  in  this  theory.  Indeed, 
fundamentally,  every  judgment  is  hypothetical.  For,  "The  judg- 
ment is  to  be  regarded  as  essentially  a  process  of  reconstruction 
which  aims  at  the  resumption  of  an  interrupted  experience."  ^*  The 
judgment  is  said  to  be  finished,  complete,  when  the  "reconstruc- 
tion" is  satisfactory  and  the  "interrupted  experience"  is  resumed. 
The  test  is,  "Does  it  work?"  But  there  is  always  the  possibility 
that  further  experience  may  necessitate  the  modification  of  any 
judgment.  This  process  of  reconstruction,  of  modifying  former 
judgments,  is  essential  to  this  theory.     It  recognizes  the  fact  that 

"Ashley,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  p.   156. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  21 

all  interpretations  of  experience  are  hypothetical;  that  nothing  is 
eternally  fixed  and  unalterable;  that,  however  complete  and  satis- 
factory is  found  a  given  explanation,  it  may  prove  inadequate  to 
explain  future  experience  and  a  revision  become  necessary. 

From  the  logical  principles  here  presented  it  follows  that  thought 
is  through  and  through  hypothetical,  and  that  the  predicate  of  the 
judgment  is  explicitly  hypothetical.  The  term  hypothesis  is,  how- 
ever, ordinarily  applied  to  a  predicate  which  has  been  formulated, 
tested,  and  tentatively  accepted  as  an  explanation  of  certain  phe- 
nomena. A.  successful  hypothesis  comes  to  be  regarded  as  a 
principle,  law,  or  theory  that  is  generally,  or  even  universally,  valid. 
Logicians  have  explained  at  length  how  these  general  hypotheses  are 
formulated  and  how  applied,  in  which  discussions  induction  and 
deduction  have  received  especial  attention.  It  is  believed  that  an 
exposition,  from  the  standpoint  of  instrumental  logic,  of  the  formu- 
lation and  testing  of  general  hypotheses,  and  how  induction  and 
deduction  are  involved  in  this  operation,  will  throw  light  on  the 
whole  situation. 

Whenever  a  difficulty  arises  in  experience,  the  situation  will  call 
up,  naturally,  a  previous  similar  experience,  if  there  has  been  such; 
and  the  predicate  found  successful  in  the  previous  situation  will, 
unless  there  are  obvious  hindrances,  be  selected  and  tested  to  deter- 
mine the  possibility  of  its  solving  the  present  problem.  If  this  predi- 
cate, either  with  or  without  much  modification,  proves  successful, 
then,  in  a  third  similar  situation,  the  mind  will  all  the  more  readily 
turn  to  this  predicate  for  a  solution  of  the  difficulty.  A  predicate 
successful  in  a  certain  class  of  phenomena  comes  to  be  regarded 
as  a  general  law;  if  the  class  to  which  it  is  applied  is  regarded  as 
complete,  or  if  the  relation  between  the  individual  of  the  class  and 
the  predicate  be  such  that  it  (the  predicate)  is  believed  to  hold  good 
of  each  one  of  the  class,  we  get  the  so-called  "universal."  In  other 
words,  a  principle,  a  law,  that  is,  a  hypothesis  by  whatever  name 
called,  is  a  co-ordination,  a  habit,  that  has  been  found  successful  in 
dealing  with  certain  phenomena.  The  development  of  a  "law"  is  a 
process  of  evolution  and,  theoretically  at  least,  the  law  is  not  fully 
determined  until  all  the  individuals  to  which  it  is  applicable  are  in 
and  checked  up.  The  law  taken  at  any  point  in  the  process  is  dif- 
ferent from  both  the  first  and  the  last  predicate ;  not  wholly  differ- 
ent but  not  identical  throughout. 


22  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

Looking  at  this  process  from  the  side  of  its  evolution,  the  "inter- 
preting" of  successive  data,  we  get  induction ;  the  law  is  built  up, 
established,  by  such  interpretations.  In  the  naive  mind,  these  laws 
"grow  up"  unconsciously.  The  reflective  man  may  observe  that  the 
same  predicate  has  been  used  in  a  number  of  judgments  and  thus 
come  to  recognize  the  operation  of  a  law.  The  scientist  sets  out 
deliberately  to  observe  phenomena,  in  order  that,  after  observing  a 
series  of  facts,  he  may  "inductively"  establish  a  "law." 

Looking  at  the  process  from  the  side  of  the  use  of  previous 
experience  to  interpret  new  data,  we  get  rf^duction.  Professor 
Angell  says: 

These  reactions  (deductions)  consist  in  applying  to  appropriate  things 
the  habitual  accompaniments  of  specific  objects,  or  events,  in  the  form  of 
general  ideas,  or  principles,  concerning  similar  objects  and  events." 

Thus  induction  and  deduction  are  present  throughout.  In  using 
the  predicate  of  the  first  experience,  A,  to  interpret  the  second 
experience,  B,  we  begin  a  process  of  induction  which  may  result  in 
the  establishment  of  a  "law;"  and  this  use  of  a  previous  predicate 
to  interpret  a  new  experience  is  the  essence  of  deduction. 

To  summarize:  The  general  point  of  view  from  which  instru- 
mental logic  is  developed  has  been  termed  "radical  empiricism."  It 
is  based  on  experience  as  such.  It  takes  the  world  of  experience 
just  as  it  stands  as  the  world  of  reality,  and  would  explain  all 
categories  of  thought  in  terms  of  this  experience.  It  is  distinctly 
evolutionary.  If  there  is  one  category  more  fundamental  than 
another,  it  is  that  of  activity.  This  activity  is  exhibited  in  the  form 
of  habit.  But  habit  or  activity  or  the  union  of  the  two  somehow 
begets  interruptions;  the  habit  breaks  down  in  the  process  of  its 
own  on-going.  Habit,  expressing  as  it  does  the  experience  of  the 
race  and  the  individual,  furnishes  the  only  tools  available  for  the 
reconstruction  of  the  interrupted  activity.  At  this  point  conscious- 
ness appears  and  in  some  way  is  effective  in  controlling  the  situa- 
tion. The  process  of  reconstruction  by  which  old  co-ordinations 
are  made  over  and  organized  into  a  harmonized,  larger  co-ordi- 
nation is  called  thought.  Thought  is  just  this  reconstruction.  With- 
in this  disturbed  situation  and  having  its  whole  meaning  there,  is 
ever  conceivable  form  of  which  thought  can  become  cognizant. 
That  is,  one's  field  of  knowledge,  the  whole  range  of  his  conscious 

'*  Psychology,  p.   240. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  23 

universe,  arises  within  and  gets  its  meaning  from  the  thought- 
situation.  ReaHty  is  not  something  thought  would  represent ;  there 
is  reaUty  in  experience  and  it  may  be  projected  as  an  "external" 
physical  world  or  conceived  of  as  an  "internal"  thought  world.  It 
is  real  if  it  is  experienced  and  one  "world"  is  just  as  real  as  the 
other. 

The  criterion  of  truth  is,  "Does  it  work?"  This  means  pos- 
sibility of  change  in  accepted  "truths"  as  one  gets  more  experience ; 
consequently,  the  through-and-through  hypothetical  nature  of  all 
knowledge.  This  is  the  point  of  view  of  the  scientist.  He  gets  his 
data,  his  experience.  He  formulates  hypotheses  to  interpret  them; 
or,  perhaps  better  said,  he  endeavors  to  state  the  mode  or  forms  of 
their  appearing  and  their  operation.  H  his  hypothesis  works,  and 
so  long  as  it  works,  he  accepts  it.  The  whole  scientific  view  of  the 
universe  is  just  such  hypothetical  construction.  The  "real  world" 
of  the  naive  man,  in  so  far  as  thought  out  at  all  and  not  simply 
accepted,  is  also  just  such  hypothetical  construction,  the  difference 
being  that  the  scientist  works  consciously  and  the  naive  man  uncon- 
sciously. If  the  criterion  of  truth  is,  "Does  it  work?"  we  get  the 
basis  of  all  accepted  truth  in  habit.  So  long  as  one  can  react  to  a 
situation  in  a  certain  way  so  long  is  one's  interpretation  of  it  true. 


II 

EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

The  preceding  discussion  of  logical  theory  makes  clear  certain 
principles  that,  if  accepted,  must  determine  the  theory  of  education. 
The  educational  theory  outlined  in  the  following  pages  is  an  attempt 
to  apply  these  principles  to  education.  The  more  important  of 
these  principles  are: 

1.  All  development  of  experience  takes  place  in  a  disturbed 
situation  brought  about  by  the  failure  to  function  of  habitual  ways 
of  reacting.  Thought  is  the  reconstructive  movement  through 
which  this  disturbed  situation  is  readjusted. 

2.  Experience  is  essentially  activity,  or  will  in  the  widest  sense 
of  that  term.  All  growth  and  development  are  through  activity. 
The  final  end  of  all  activity  is  practical  conduct. 

3.  Habit  as  the  form  in  which  valuable  experiences  are  retained 
constitutes  the  material  with  which  thought  operates.     The  disin- 


24  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

tegration  and  redintegration  of  habit  is  the  fundamental  movement 
in  development. 

4.  The  failure  of  habits  and  the  tension  resulting  therefrom 
give  rise  to  the  thought-situation.  Within  this  thought-situation 
are  realized  all  the  manifold  forms  of  intellectual  life. 

5.  The  reconstruction  of  the  thought-situation  is  hypothetical. 
The  test  of  its  truth  is  practical :  "Does  it  work  ?"  Further  experi- 
ence may  modify  any  conclusion.  All  development  involves  a  con- 
tinued reconstruction  of  experience. 

These  principles  point  out  the  way  experience  goes  on.  One's 
education  is,  at  any  given  moment,  the  sum  total  of  these  accu- 
mulating experiences.  The  process  of  education  is  the  process  of 
experiencing.  The  results  may  be  judged  good  or  bad.  The  attain- 
ment of  certain  desirable  ends  is  possible  only  by  discovering  the 
nature  of  this  process  of  experience  and  by  shaping  its  course  of 
development.  The  particular  problem  of  this  paper  is  to  point  out 
this  logical  basis  of  all  education.  It  was  shown  in  Part  I  that  the 
term  "thought"  is  used  to  cover  the  whole  reconstructive  process. 
Thought  is  the  instrument,  or  tool,  through  which  experience  recon- 
structs itself.  But  this  process  of  reconstruction  is  just  the  process 
of  education;  the  thought  process  is  the  educative  process.  Edu- 
cation might  be  defined  as  applied  logic. 

The  remaining  portion  of  this  paper  points  out  in  some  detail 
how  these  logical  principles  determine,  fundamentally,  the  character 
of  all  education.  How  the  fundamental  forms  of  thought  activity 
constitute  education  will  be  considered  first;  then  certain  generally 
recognized  educative  processes  will  be  taken  up  and  their  place  in 
the  logical  process  indicated.  The  primary  purpose  of  this  paper 
is  not  to  outline  the  method  of  education,  except  in  so  far  as  the 
establishment  of  the  logical  processes  involved  in  all  education 
must  in  a  general  way  determine  and  point  out  such  method.  It 
seems  advisable,  however,  to  indicate  briefly  certain  methods  of 
procedure  which  are  essential  to  education,  but  this  is  secondary  to 
the  main  purpose. 

Education  is  coexistent  and  coextensive  with  experience.  It  is 
going  on  throughout  the  entire  lifetime  of  the  individual.  The  term 
education  is  often  limited,  however,  to  childhood  and  youth,  and 
particularly  to  the  period  of  school  age.  The  extremely  plastic 
and  comparatively  unorganized  condition  of  early  life  makes  it  the 


THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  25 

great  educative  period.  The  child  is  making  rapid  strides  in  devel- 
opment; the  school  is  the  specific  institution  that  society  has  set 
apart  to  aid  the  child  in  this  development.  For  these  reasons  fre- 
quent reference  will  be  made  to  the  child  and  to  the  school. 

Because  of  the  immediate  dependence  of  instrumental  logic  on 
psychology  a  portion  of  the  discussion  of  educational  theory  is  taken 
up  with  psychological  analyses.  This  seems  necessary  to  an  ade- 
quate appreciation  of  the  situation.  In  a  general  way,  the  principles 
will  be  discussed  in  the  order  given. 

I.      THE    NATURE   OF   EDUCATION 

In  the  discussion  of  logical  theory,  emphasis  was  laid  upon  the 
breakdown  of  habit  which  experience  suffers.  This  gives  rise  to  a 
disturbed  situation,  a  state  of  tension,  a  problem.  The  very  essence 
of  experience  being  activity,  there  could  be  no  rest  here;  so  there 
follow  tentative  movements  the  end  of  which  is  to  make  some  satis- 
factory readjustment.  The  problem  is  finally  solved,  the  readjust- 
ment accomplished,  and  attention  is  turned  to  other  problems. 

This  breakdown  of  habitual  ways  of  reacting,  the  problem  which 
it  generates,  and  the  final  successful  solution  are  essential  to  educa- 
tion. The  old  habits  fail,  and  just  at  the  point  of  failure  is  where 
education,  which  is  just  the  process  of  readjusting,  takes  place. 
Attention  was  called  to  the  fundamental  nature  of  habit;  how  our 
ideas,  points  of  view,  facts,  perceptions,  concepts,  in  fact  our  whole 
intellectual  content,  are  grounded  in  habit.  They  are  forms  of 
habitual  reactions  which  come  to  consciousness  as  intellectual  con- 
tent in  this  breakdown  of  habit,  and  they  constitute  the  intellectual 
capital  that  an  individual  has  at  any  given  time  upon  which  he 
may  draw  in  the  solution  of  a  problem.  For  education  to  take 
place,  there  must  be  this  problem;  there  must  be  this  intellectual 
content;  and  there  must  be  at  least  a  tentative  solution.  If  success 
follows,  the  "point  of  view"  is  accepted;  better,  the  acceptance  of 
the  point  of  view  is  the  "success."  This  accepted  solution  is  always 
tested;  first,  the  fact  that  it  solves  the  problem  at  hand  is  a  test  of 
its  validity;  second,  its  use  as  occasion  may  demand  in  subsequent 
experience  furnishes  additional  testing.  It  is  only  the  scientist 
who  produces  artificial  conditions  for  testing  his  hypotheses..  The 
child  or  the  naive  man  tests  them  as  he  needs  them.  This  testing 
further  readjusts  and  confirms  tentative  solutions.    It  gives  validity 


26  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

and  solidarity  to  experience.  This  is  an  important  part  of 
education. 

Education  is  "a  reconstruction  of  experience,"  but  it  is  not  a 
mere  working-over  of  past  experiences.  The  very  reconstruction  of 
old  experience  constitutes  a  new  experience.  Further:  in  dis- 
cussing the  breakdown  of  habit,  attention  was  called  to  the  fact 
that  experience  begets  interruptions;  that  change  is  involved  in 
the  very  conception  of  life.  These  interruptions,  these  changes, 
are  new  experience.  They  constitute  the  new  conditions  which 
must  be  met  and  assimilated.  Education  is,  then,  an  enlarging,  an 
addition  to,  as  well  as  a  reconstruction  of,  old  experience.  It  is 
development,  growth,  expansion.  Logically,  education  might  be 
defined  as  the  process  of  growth  and  organization  of  experience 
through  the  reconstruction  of  old  experience  in  order  to  harmonize 
it  with,  or  "explain,"  the  new. 

This  view  of  education  is  not  the  one  generally  accepted.  The 
more  common  view  looks  upon  education  as  a  preparation  for  the 
future.  The  end  lies  outside  the  present  moment.  Various  sorts 
of  external  results  have  been  set  up  as  the  goal.  It  is  the  acquiring 
of  learning,  or  information;  the  development  of  moral  character; 
"a,  harmonious  development  of  all  the  powers;"  or  simply  a 
preparation  for  life.  The  theory  of  education  derived  from  the 
principles  of  instrumental  logic  puts  the  goal  within  the  educa- 
tive process.  Education  is  not  something  to  be  obtained  through  a 
long  course  of  training  or  instruction ;  it  is  the  process  of  growth 
which  is  now  in  progress.  It  is  an  internal  evolution,  not  an  exter- 
nal addition  of  information,  knowledge,  or  mere  accumulations  of 
any  sort.     Education  is  the  entire  process  of  growth. 

II.      THE   MOTOR   ELEMENT   IN   EDUCATION 

An  appreciation  of  the  logic  of  the  educative  process  enables 
one  to  recognize  the  importance  of  the  motor  element  in  educa- 
tion. All  growth  and  development  are  essentially  activity.  Activity 
manifests  itself  as  tendencies  to  various  kinds  of  movements,  as  a 
striving  after  objects,  as  definite  forms  of  reaction.  We  have 
instincts,  reflexes,  desires,  ideas,  and  will;  these  are  some  of  the 
forms  in  which  activity  appears.  The  word  "impulse"  is  here  used 
to  cover  all  these  tendencies  to  activity,  however  vague  and  indefi- 
nite or  clear  and  defined. 


THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  27 

This  growing  activity  is  going  on  in  this  real  world  of  physical 
and  social  and  intellectual  and  moral  interests.  We  are  interested 
in  our  physical  needs — food,  clothing,  shelter;  in  our  world  of 
loves,  hopes,  fears,  and  ambitions.  It  is  because  we  are  doing 
things  and  attempting  to  do  things  that  intellectual  growth,  or 
growth  of  any  kind,  takes  place.  Because  of  conflicting  impulses, 
problems  arise  in  this  activity.  A  man  cannot  build  a  beautiful 
home  and  at  the  same  time  use  the  money  for  travel.  And  so  his 
desires  come  into  conflict ;  both  cannot  be  realized  as  they  appear"  to 
him  here  and  now.  One  must  be  abandoned  if  the  other  is  to  be 
secured,  or  some  sort  of  a  new  arrangement  must  be  devised  if  both 
are  to  be  enjoyed. 

These  problems  are  not  sentimental  or  fanciful  or  unessential. 
They  must  be  solved  if  life  is  to  be  realized.  They  are  just  the 
things  that  are  "worth  while"  and  for  which  humanity  strives. 
They  make  life  real  and  vital.  Furthermore,  it  is  the  solving  of 
these  practical,  living  problems  that  gives  that  satisfaction  which 
experience  demands  as  its  adequate  realization. 

It  is  in  solving  just  such  real  problems  as  these  that  education 
takes  place.  To  speak  particularly  of  early  education:  problems 
may  be  "set"  for  the  child;  his  teacher  may  regard  these  set  prob- 
lems as  essential  to  his  right  development;  but  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  problems  to  the  child  himself  does  their  solution  give  intel- 
lectual growth.  The  child  is  active.  He  does  have  problems,  and 
the  solution  of  these  problems,  his  own,  are  the  only  ones  on  which 
his  education  depends.  The  question  is  not  of  "giving"  the  child 
problems,  but  of  deciding  which  of  his  own  problems  shall  receive 
attention.  At  any  point  in  his  experience  the  child  has  more  prob- 
lems, consciously  or  subconsciously  present  to  him,  than  he  can  solve. 
The  teacher  ought  to  be  familiar  enough  with  child  development  to 
have  some  idea  of  the  nature  of  these  problems  and  of  their  mean- 
ing in  terms  of  the  social  conditions  which  begot  them,  and  of  what 
value  their  solution  would  be  to  the  child.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
teacher  to  emphasize  and  cause  the  child  to  react  to  those  prob- 
lems which  have  the  greatest  significance  for  him  as  a  social  being 
living  in  a  given  social  environment. 

The  impulse  to  activity  furnishes  the  starting-point  for  all  edu- 
cation. Dr.  Dewey  says:  "In  man,  there  are  few  instincts  pure 
and  simple,  but  rather  the  loose  beginnings  and  ends  of  very  many 


28  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL   THEORY 

instincts.  Hence,  the  range  and  variety  of  human,  as  compared 
with  animal  reactions."  ^®  These  instincts  are  the  "leavings"  of  our 
ancestry;  that  which  was  beneficial  to  them  and  which  has  been 
bequeathed  to  us.  These  inherited  impulses  and  instincts  are  the 
only  capital  on  which  the  child  has  to  begin.  He  who  would  direct 
the  child's  development  must  place  himself,  as  it  were,  within  the 
range  of  these  impulses  and  content  himself  with  emphasizing  the 
more  important  ones.  Only  in  this  way  is  it  possible  to  direct  the 
child  into  the  more  desirable  forms  of  activity. 

The  impulses  reveal  fundamental  forms  of  social  activity,  which 
are  functioning  in  the  civilization  of  today.  The  meaning  of  these 
impulses  is  to  be  found  then  in  this  civilization.  Consequently, 
civilization  must  furnish  the  criterion  for  him  who  would  direct 
the  child's  education.  The  language  impulse  shows  itself  in  the 
babbling  of  the  infant.  To  the  child  it  means  nothing.  It  is  simply 
the  outgoing  of  his  activity  along  lines  predetermined  by  inherit- 
ance. But  to  the  adult  it  is  the  beginning  of  the  chief  means  of 
communication  with  one's  fellows.  Out  of  this  communicative 
impulse  there  develop  talking,  reading,  writing,  and  the  higher 
aesthetic  appreciation  of  literature.  It  is  the  beginning  of  the 
child's  intellectual  social  life.  The  mother  and  companions  respond 
to  the  infant's  babbling,  and  so  it  comes  to  have  meaning  for  it. 
So  it  is  with  other  impulses  exhibited  by  the  child.  He  who  sees 
the  end  from  the  beginning  has  a  criterion  by  which  to  judge  the 
relative  value  and  importance  of  these  impulsive  beginnings. 

Activity  involves  change  of  some  "physical"  form.  It  is  com- 
monly held  by  psychologists  that  "thought"  is  accompanied  by 
cerebral  changes,  if  by  no  other.  Conduct,  for  which  thought 
exists,  always  involves  some  physical  change.  It  is  in,  or  by  means 
of,  some  physical  change  that  our  ideals  are  realized.  These  ideals 
may  be  the  attainment  of  personal  pleasure,  a  business  transaction 
with  our  fellow-men,  or  the  performance  of  a  religious  duty.  Our 
ideal  may  be  expressed  in  language,  by  bodily  activity,  or  by  means 
of  some  "external"  physical  object.  This  fact  has  an  important 
bearing  on  education.  The  child  grows  intellectually  by  working 
out  his  ideals  in  just  such  external  ways.  His  thought  should 
serve  some  end  which  may  be  externally  realized.  Here  is  the 
logical  basis  for  handwork  as  a  means  of  education.  When  the 
child  can  work  out  a  problem  in  a  given  concrete  form  through  the 

^The  Study  of  Ethics,  p.  13. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  29 

medium  of  clay,  wood,  or  graphically,  it  becomes  "real"  to  him  as 
mere  thoughts  do  not.  It  is  objective,  it  can  be  criticized,  and, 
usually,  it  can  be  modified  so  as  to  approach  more  nearly  the  ideal 
embodied  in  it. 

Much  of  the  work  of  the  schoolroom  lacks  this  objective  reali- 
zation. The  solutions  of  the  problems,  in  so  far  as  there  are 
problems,  are  merely  intellectual.  As  a  rule,  there  is  little  oppor- 
tunity to  work  out  results  in  a  concrete  way.  Thought  fails  to 
function  and  so  we  get  sentimentalism  and  lack  of  interest.  To 
make  matters  worse,  the  so-called  problems  are  the  problems  of 
the  teacher,  not  of  the  child.  His  intellectual  activities  are  directed 
along  lines  which  others  have  considered  valuable  and  which  have 
no  vital  interest  for  him.  Take,  for  instance,  the  usual  method  of 
teaching  arithmetic.  The  child  is  expected  to  learn  the  processes 
and  principles  in  logical  order,  as  systematically  arranged  by 
mature  minds.  But  data  are  organized  only  after  getting  them. 
The  human  mind  does  not  learn  in  the  "logical"  order  naturally; 
the  genetic  order  is  not  the  logical  order.  Furthermore,  the  child 
sees  no  need  of  these  data.  They  have  not  grown  out  of,  and  have 
no  apparent  connection  with,  his  own  interests.  The  problems,  if 
problems  are  present  at  all,  do  not  connect  up  with  the  real  life  of 
the  child.  There  is  a  dualism ;  the  child  leads  two  lives,  one  a 
life  outside  the  school,  full  of  interest,  with  real  problems;  the 
other  a  life  of  the  schoolroom  dealing  with  material  which,  though 
it  may  have  some  interest,  yet  is  not  vitally  related  to  the  child's 
"real"  life.  So  his  knowledge  is  largely  of  the  character  of  infor- 
mation. It  is  not  usable  and  it  is  not  "real,"  because  it  does  not 
arise  out  of  genuine  problems.  Furthermore,  there  is  no  oppor- 
tunity to  test  and  check  up  in  a  practical  way  the  solution  of  the 
problems  that  may  have  some  interest  for  him. 

The  fundamentally  active  character  of  all  education  seems  now 
clear.  Experience  is  a  process,  an  activity.  Thought  is  the  process 
of  reconstruction  of  experience,  an  activity.  This  process  of  recon- 
struction is  education.  Furthermore,  education  is  not  mere  activity, 
but  it  is  activity  that  would  realize  itself  in  some  definite,  concrete 
way.    The  end  of  education  is  practical  conduct. 

III.       HABIT  AND   EDUCATION 

The  function  of  habit  in  the  thought  process  has  been  discussed 
at  length.     It  was  shown  that  habit  is  the  tendency  of  experience 


3©  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

to  repeat  itself;  that  the  habits  of  any  individual  are  the  accumu- 
lated, valuable  ways  of  reacting  which  the  race  has  preserved  and 
bequeathed  to  him,  and  those  acquired  during  his  own  lifetime. 
These  habits  manifest  themselves  in  impulses,  instincts,  reflexes, 
points  of  view,  customs,  and  in  every  form  of  activity  that  tends  in 
one  direction  rather  than  in  another.  It  was  shown  that  there  exist 
not  only  these  habits  commonly  recognized  as  such,  but  that 
thought,  also,  depends  upon  habitual  co-ordinations.  Our  habits 
determine  what  we  shall  be  cognizant  of  and  also  how  we  shall 
deal  with  our  thought  content.  Habit  is  the  great  conserving 
principle.  It  is  the  working  capital,  the  accumulated  earnings,  with 
which  experience  operates. 

It  was  shown  that  habit  breaks  down ;  that  in  the  very  nature  of 
the  on-going  activity  which  manifests  itself  in  habit  interruptions 
occur.  There  is  a  state  of  tension;  a  problem  arises;  the  contents 
of  our  thought  are  in  conflict,  at  war  with  each  other,  necessitating 
a  readjustment  which  means  the  formation  of  a  new  habit  that 
will  harmonize  the  divergent  factors  and  restore  a  unified  activity. 
This  breakdown  and  reconstruction  of  habit  is  the  normal  condition. 

Habit  is  a  primary  factor  in  education.  Reconstruction  of 
experience  is  the  reconstruction  of  habit.  Experience  is  practical ;  it 
is  "doing  things."  The  way  things  are  done,  the  way  of  acting,  is 
determined  by  habit.  In  a  sense,  the  goal  of  education  is  the  forma- 
tion of  good  habits.  The  great  difference  between  the  infant  and 
the  adult  is  that  the  adult  has  learned  to  react  to  the  conditions  of 
life  in  ways  that  give  him  power  to  control  activity.  By  experience 
he  has  accumulated  a  vast  number  of  habitual  co-ordinations  which 
do,  in  a  measure,  meet  the  demands.  Thus  he  is  free  to  take  up 
new  problems  which,  were  it  not  for  this  past  experience  retained 
in  the  form  of  habit,  he  would  not  only  be  absolutely  unable  to 
control  but  would  even  be  unconscious  of  their  existence. 

It  was  said  that  habits  are  the  tools  by  which  problems  are 
solved.  It  follows  that  the  more  perfect  the  tool,  the  more  com- 
pletely a  given  form  of  reaction  is  under  the  control,  the  more 
efficient  it  will  be.  The  value  of  so-called  intellectual  education 
has  its  value  in  the  habits  which  it  establishes.  To  illustrate :  In 
nature-study,  for  example,  the  child  gets  certain  facts  of  plant 
life  which,  if  he  is  properly  taught,  enable '  him  to  understand 
certain  phases  of  his  experience  that  had  been  a  problem  to  him. 


THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL   THEORY  3 1 

The  interpreting  of  these  "facts"  was  in  terms  of  previous  experi- 
ence. That  was  the  only  thing  he  had  to  interpret  them  with.  Now 
that  the  facts  are  interpreted,  they  are  a  part  of  his  organized 
experience,  his  habits ;  they  not  only  control  his  actions  at  the  time 
of  such  interpretation  but  they  determine  future  conduct.  It  may 
be  possible,  but  not  probable,  that  a  fact  which  the  individual  needs 
at  one  time  will  be  so  out  of  relation  to  all  future  experience  that 
the  particular  form  of  reaction  to  that  fact  will  never  be  repeated. 
If  education  were  a  preparation  for  the  future,  and  if  the  prob- 
lems had  no  vital  relation  to  present  living,  it  is  conceivable  that, 
under  such  conditions,  the  solution  of  a  merely  intellectual  problem 
might  have  little  relation,  if  any,  to  the  experiences  of  real  life. 
There  is  an  intellectual  field  of  thought  which  does  not  have 
immediate  relation  to  practical  life;  a  field  of  thought  which  is 
pursued  because  of  the  intellectual  appreciation  and  satisfaction 
which  it  gives.  But  it  is  not  admitted  that  such  thought  is  free 
from  the  law  of  habit  or  unrelated  to  practical  conduct.  In  the 
first  place,  it  has  been  shown  that  our  entire  intellectual  content 
may  be  expressed  in  terms  of  habit;  that  it  is  grounded  in  habit. 
In  the  second  place,  it  is  questioned  whether  anyone  is  really  inter- 
ested in  so-called  abstract  truth  per  se.  It  is  because  the  scientist 
or  philosopher  is  able  widely  to  separate  the  means  from  the  end 
and  yet  see  the  relation  of  each  part  to  the  whole  that  he  becomes 
interested  in  abstract  fields  of  thought.  It  is  because  of  his  faith 
that  his  "truth"  is  true  and  hence  does  have  some  bearing  upon 
life  at  large  that  he  is  interested  in  it.  And  if  "at  large,"  i.  e.,  if  at 
all,  it  must  be  in  the  conduct  of  some  individual,  or  individuals, 
and  hence  is  practical. 

There  is,  in  the  process  of  education,  a  continual  passing  over 
of  broken  co-ordinations  into  more  comprehensive  readjustments. 
But  the  "passing  over"  is  not  made  at  one  jump.  It  can  reason- 
ably be  questioned  whether  any  co-ordination  ever  becomes  per- 
fectly adjusted  to  the  conditions  of  experiencing.  Not  only  does 
it  do  its  first  work  imperfectly  but  a  practically  perfect  adjustment 
is  attained  only  after  many  repetitions.  There  is  a  gradual  approach 
to  efficiency.  On  the  other  hand,  an  absolutely  unchanging  habit 
implies  unchanging  conditions  in  experience ;  but  this  is  impossible. 
No  experience  is  ever  absolutely  duplicated.  This  necessitates  con- 
tinual change  in  habit. 


32  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

Under  logical  theory  were  discussed  the  conditions  that  lead  to 
the  interruption  of  habit.  It  was  shown  that  the  occasion  of  the 
failure  of  habit  is  the  arising  of  a  situation  in  which  the  habitual 
modes  of  reaction  are  in  conflict ;  they  fail  to  function.  The  presence 
of  sensation  indicates  the  point  of  break;  perceptions,  concep- 
tions, images,  ideas,  appear  because  they  are  related  to  the  disturb- 
ance. Often,  it  is  a  percept  which  refuses  to  be  accounted  for 
satisfactorily.  To  the  botanist,  it  is  a  new  and  strange  plant  which 
he  cannot  classify.  Each  such  difficulty  arises  either  within  the 
circle  of  our  ordinary  reactions  which  these  reactions  cannot 
assimilate  and  which  necessitate  a  going  outside  or  beyond  them  to 
get  its  "explanation;"  or  it  arises  outside  of  and  gets  its  explana- 
tion within,  or  through,  these  ordinary  reactions.  One  enlarges 
experience  by  taking  it  beyond  the  accustomed  circle;  the  other 
enriches  experience  by  being  brought  into  the  usual  modes  of 
reaction;  both  enrich  life  by  the  added  experience  got  through  the 
reconstruction  of  old  experience. 

Here  we  get  a  clue  to  the  demand  of  life  for  ever-widening 
experience.  It  is  necessary  in  order  that  the  present  life  be  under- 
stood and  controlled.  We  get  increased  power  by  getting  outside 
of  and  beyond  the  present.  The  richness  and  fulness  of  intellectual 
life  is  in  exact  ratio  to  the  actual  readjustments  effected.  An  ever- 
widening  experience  is  absolutely  essential  to  the  interpretation  of 
the  life  process.  But  this  demand  for  the  "new"  must  grow  out 
of  problems  arising  in  the  old.  New  experience  merely  as  new 
is  worthless;  only  as  the  new  is  reached  out  for  and  appropriated 
because  it  enables  one  to  solve  problems,  accomplish  purposes,  has 
it  any  educational  value.  The  value  of  new  experience  will  depend 
upon  this  relation  to  the  old.  A  historical  fact  as  a  mere  datum  of 
information  has  no  educative  value.  Unless  the  fact  comes  in 
response  to  a  real  demand  on  the  part  of  the  experiencing  indi- 
vidual and  contributes  to  a  fuller  interpretation  of  the  conditions 
which  begot  that  demand;  or,  at  least,  unless  when  the  attention  is 
directed  to  the  fact  it  enlarges  one's  point  of  view,  gives  one  a 
better  understanding  of  life,  it  is,  and  remains,  a  mere  bit  of 
isolated  experience;  it  does  not  enter  into  one's  organized  life,  the 
real  self,  and,  consequently,  has  no  part  in  determining  future 
experience. 

This  interpretation  of  new   experience,   which  is   so  essential, 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  33 

gives  the  ground  for  repetition.  Reference  was  made  to  the  fact 
that  no  habit  is  perfect  in  its  inception,  necessitating  a  continual 
perfecting  of  the  co-ordination.  This  perfecting  is  largely  a  pro- 
cess of  elimination.  The  child  in  learning  to  walk  makes  a  great 
many  movements  that  are  unnecessary.  The  growth  in  his  habit 
is  largely  the  eliminating  of  these  unnecessary  movements.  Only 
gradually  does  a  habit  become  adapted  to  the  demands  made  upon 
it.  It  was  also  stated  that  no  experience  ever  repeats  itself,  and  that 
this  necessitates  a  continual  modification  of  habit.  The  repetition 
of  habit,  then,  narrows  the  co-ordination  by  this  elimination  and  at 
the  same  time  widens  it,  making  it  serviceable  to  a  continually 
enlarging  range  of  experience.  The  real  demand  for  repetition  is 
in  this  demand  for  previous  experience  to  interpret  new  experience. 
It  is  questioned  whether  repetition  that  has  no  vital  relation  to  the 
reconstruction  of  genuine  experience  and  for  the  interpretation  of 
that  experience,  but  is  repeated  on  request  for  the  sake  of  its  sup- 
posed value,  has  any  place  in  education  at  all.  The  opportunity  for 
a  rich  and  wide  experience  gives  a  genuine  demand  for  the  repeti- 
tion of  previous  experience  in  the  normal,  natural  way.  True,  a 
child  learning  to  talk  will  get  a  new  word  and  repeat  it  over  and 
over  again  and  delight  in  the  repetition.  But  the  demand  for  the 
word  in  the  first  place  lay  outside  the  mere  act  itself;  the  use  of 
the  word,  beyond  mere  babbling,  was  for  some  purpose.  The  repe- 
tition gives  the  child  better  control  over  the  new  co-ordination;  as 
soon  as  the  word  is  really  learned,  for  the  child,  the  apparent  mere 
repetition  ceases.  The  practice  of  so  much  bare  repetition  in  our 
schools  has  come  about  through  a  misconception  of  the  purpose  of 
education.  The  teacher  desires  to  impart  certain  "knowledge" 
which  she  considers  valuable  because  it  will  be  needed  at  some 
future  time.  This  knowledge  is  not  the  result  of  the  living  experi- 
ence of  the  child  and  there  is  no  demand  for  its  continued  use,  and 
hence  its  repetition,  in  the  child's  normal  experience;  so  educa- 
tors have  considered  it  necessary  to  devise  certain  artificial  means 
for  securing  its  repetition.  The  positively  illogical  ground  for  the 
practice  is  evident.  The  logical  demand  for  repetition  is  in  the  use 
of  co-ordinations  formed  in  previous  experience  for  the  purpose 
of  readjusting  a  new,  and  hence  problematic,  situation. 

If  a  process  is  so  taught,  when  it  is  needed,  that  the  child 
really  becomes  master  of  the  new  co-ordination,  the  teacher  may 


34  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

safely  allow  the  matter  to  rest  there  until  the  process  is  again 
demanded.  What  the  child  needs  is  not  rare  and  unusual  items  of 
information  but  a  knowledge  of  how  successfully  to  meet  the  ordi- 
nary and  constant  demands  upon  him.  The  co-ordinations  formed 
for  this  purpose  will  be  required  again  and  again  and  so  be 
continually  repeated. 

To  insure  a  full  and  rich  development,  there  must  be  oppor- 
tunity for  free  activity  in  which  the  child  will  get  new  experience. 
Power  comes  with  the  use  of  past  experience  in  interpreting  these 
new  conditions.  This  application  of  previous  experience  means 
a  continual  reorganization  of  habits  that  increases  their  efficiency. 
The  notion  that  a  mass  of  habits  may,  or  should  be,  acquired  which, 
when  once  attained,  are  adequate  for  all  time,  is  a  common  error 
and  very  largely  responsible  for  the  lack  of  growth  and  spontaneity 
so  essential  to  all  development.  The  belief  that  truth  is  absolute 
and  unchangeable,  regardless  of  what  future  experience  may  bring, 
is  the  greatest  bar  to  progress.  It  is  the  very  nature  of  one's 
experience  to  undergo  more  or  less  disintegration.  But  in 
the  redintegration  which  the  disintegration  begets,  experience 
more  than  repays  itself  for  the  apparent  loss.  It  is  because  new 
experience  proves  the  old  inadequate  that  reorganization  comes. 
This  view  of  continual  change  does  not  mean  skepticism.  It  is  a 
growth,  a  development.  The  old  is  not  cast  aside,  but  is  reorgan- 
ized, readjusted,  and  taken  up  into  larger  co-ordinations.  The 
future  is  built  up  out  of  the  past.  This  whole  process — ^the  forma- 
tion and  reorganization  of  habits  in  order  to  readjust  a  disturbed 
situation  in  which  situation  new  experience  appears — is  education. 

IV.      THE    WORK   OF   THOUGHT    IN    EDUCATION 

This  reconstructing  of  experience,  of  habit,  is  thinking.  Activity 
might  be  termed  the  matrix  out  of  which  habit  and  thought 
evolve.  Habit  conserves  valuable  experiences.  Thought  recon- 
structs disorganized  habits,  and  it  is  in  this  process  that  the  various 
forms  of  intellectual  life  appear. 

A  consideration  of  a  few  of  the  fundamental  characteristics  of 
thought's  operation  will  make  clear  the  conditions  under  which 
education  takes  place.  There  will  be  considered:  (i)  Conscious- 
ness, including  the  subconscious  and  the  unconscious ;  (2)  Sugges- 
tion and  Imitation;  (3)  Attention  and  Interest;  and  (4) 
Judgment. 


THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  35 

I.  Consciousness. — Thought  takes  cognizance  of  its  own  con- 
tents and  operations.  It  becomes  "aware"  of  itself.  This  "aware- 
ness" is  what  is  meant  by  the  word  "consciousness."  Consciousness 
operates  in  the  control  of  experience,  in  the  readjusting  of  a  dis- 
turbed situation.  Mr.  Irving  King  says:  "The  degree  of  organi- 
zation present  in  consciousness  bears  a  direct  ratio  to  the  degree 
in  which  new  and  complex  adjustments  have  been  formed  in  the 
lifetime  of  an  individual."^^  Consciousness  is  concerned  in  the 
creating  of  one's  entire  universe,  both  the  "internal"  and  the  "exter- 
nal" world.  It  is  said  to  have  its  origin  in  the  disturbed  situation, 
but  as  there  seems  to  have  been  "disturbance"  from  the  beginning 
of  life  it  would  appear  that  thought  has  always  been  conscious  of 
its  operations. 

Consciousness  is  used  as  a  general  term  to  cover  all 
"awareness,"  but  all  degrees  of  consciousness  are  not  the  same. 
In  any  given  state  of  consciousness,  there  is  a  certain  object,  or 
objects,  that  commands  attention.  This  point  stands  out  more 
clearly  in  consciousness  than  the  others.  It  has  been  called  the 
"focal  point."  In  addition  to  this  foeal  point  many  other  objects  or 
ideas  are  in  consciousness.  Every  object  which  becomes  a  focal 
point  seems  to  come  to  that  point  by  gradually  crowding  out  the 
objects  which  precede  it.  In  turn  this  object  gradually  disappears, 
giving  way  to  others.  (The  term  "object"  is  here  used  to  indicate 
anything  toward  which  attention  may  be  directed.)  It  is  undoubt- 
edly true  that  many  objects  are  in  consciousness  and  influence  the 
direction  of  the  "stream  of  thought,"  that  never  reach  the  focal 
point.  They  never  get  inside  the  "fringe."  The  term  conscious- 
ness in  its  narrower  signification  is  applied  to  the  focal  point,  while 
those  objects  which  are  in  the  fringe  are  said  to  be  in  subconscious- 
ness. There  is  yet  another  sphere  of  activity,  the  "unconscious." 
Here  activity  is  so  habitual  that  there  seems  to  be  no  need  for 
thought.  The  question  might  legitimately  be  raised  whether  there 
is  any  action  without  some  readjustment,  though  it  be  slight;  and  if 
readjustment,  then  thought.  Practically,  however,  habits  do  become 
so  thoroughly  automatic  that  thought,  and  so  the  conscious  element, 
may  be  ignored.  This  would  give  then,  with  reference  to  con- 
sciousness, three  divisions  of  activity;  the  conscious  (in  the  nar- 
rower sense),  the  subconscious,  and  the  unconscious. 

'^  Psychology  of  Child  Development,  p.  31. 


36  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

The  process  of  education,  the  reconstructive  movement,  is  a 
conscious  process.  There  is  a  break  in  old  co-ordinations.  The 
disjointed,  warring  factors  come  to  consciousness  and  the  situation 
is  controlled  through  the  conscious  reorganization  of  this  content. 
The  break  generates  the  problem ;  consciousness  makes  control 
possible.  Let  the  disturbed  situation  be  brought  under  control  and 
the  co-ordination  that  adjusts  the  situation  remains  and  is  a  means 
for  solving  other  problems.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  problem  be 
consciously  present.  There  must  be  a  solution  if  the  experience  is 
to  have  value.  The  more  sharply  the  whole  situation  comes  to  con- 
sciousness, the  more  likely  there  will  be  formed  an  adequate  solu- 
tion and  the  greater  the  value  of  that  bit  of  experience  in  future 
adjustments.  There  is  little  or  no  growth  in  unconscious  activity. 
The  subconscious  is  more  fruitful;  in  fact,  it  plays  a  large  and 
important  part  in  development.  The  fact  yet  remains  that  the 
extent  to  which  a  disturbed  situation  comes  into  consciousness,  and 
a  readjustment  to  the  whole  situation  is  "consciously"  made,  deter- 
mines the  degree  of  efficiency  of  the  resulting  co-ordination  and  its 
value  in  future  experience.  It  is  only  because  so  much  more  of 
our  experience  is  in  subconsciousness  than  in  the  center  of  atten- 
tion, that  the  subconscious  plays  so  large  a  part  in  development. 
Consciousness  present  in  some  degree  seems  to  be  essential  to 
growth. 

It  follows,  then,  that  in  education  there  must  be  no  minimizing 
of  problems.  Continually  to  smooth  over  the  child's  difficulties  is 
to  rob  him  of  conditions  essential  to  his  growth.  If  the  child  is  to 
think  clearly  and  judge  accurately,  he  must  become  keenly  con- 
scious of  his  difficulties  and  realize  fully  the  ground  of  their 
solution.  To  permit  him  to  leave  a  problem  half  solved  or  vaguely 
understood  is  but  to  leave  a  barrier  to  future  progress.  Only  in 
full  conscious  activity  is  the  nature  of  the  whole  problem  and  the 
full  meaning  of  its  solution  to  be  realized.  Clear,  keen  intellectual 
activity  is  an  essential  condition  of  a  thoroughly  adequate  develop- 
ment. 

It  is  important  to  understand  clearly  the  place  of  the  uncon- 
scious and  the  subconscious  in  intellectual  development.  These  two 
terms  cover  instincts,  reflexes,  and  fixed  habits.  The  instinctive 
and  reflexive  activities  are  fundamental  to  life.-  The  instincts  lead 
to  the  securing  of  food,  to  self -protection,  and  to  race-preservation. 


'■ZiiSiT  Y. 


THE  LOGICAL   BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  37 

The  reflexes  keep  the  organism  going.  These  reflexes  and  instincts 
are  due  to  inheritance.  They  are  valuable  assets  handed  down  to 
us  by  our  ancestry;  acquisitions  which  have  been  retained  because 
of  their  value.  One's  subconscious  world  is  made  up  of  these  half- 
conscious  reflexes,  instincts,  and  habits  acquired  during  lifetime, 
which  do  not  come  to  full  consciousness  because  of  their  automatic 
nature  or  because  other  factors  are  in  consciousness  that  need  atten- 
tion. A  large  part  of  one's  subconscious  world  would  come  to  full 
consciousness  if  permitted  to  do  so.  Attention  is  always  directed 
to  the  point  of  greatest  stress;  it  operates  where  there  is  greatest 
need. 

This  vague  "subconscious"  content  exerts  tremendous  influence 
in  directing  the  stream  of  thought.  It  envelops  the  object  of 
attention  and  clothes  it  with  meaning.  It  would  seem  that  an 
object  is  "familiar,"  not  so  much  because  of  that  which  is  con- 
sciously recognized,  as  for  those  things  which  are  "felt"  to  be 
around  and  about  it.  It  is  because  of  the  feeling  that  we  could  if 
we  wished  explain  this  and  that  feature  of  the  object,  that  we  could 
react  to  it  in  such  and  such  ways,  that  make  it  a  "known"  object. 
This  whole  "felt"  world  belongs  to  the  subconscious.  We  feel  the 
direction  from  which  the  object  has  come  and  toward  which  it 
is  moving.  We  feel  that  it  is  accompanied  by  an  innumerable 
company  of  related  ideas.  These  things  are  what  give  it  meaning. 
The  educator  must  recognize  these  influences.  A  difficulty  experi- 
enced often  lies  in  this  fringe.  By  directing  the  individual's  atten- 
tion to  these  subconscious  factors,  and  bringing  them  to  the  focus, 
often  he  will  see  the  difficulty  and  readily  solve  the  problem. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  co-ordinations  can,  and  do,  remain  in  subcon- 
sciousness. It  would  be  impossible  for  the  mind  "consciously"  to 
attend  to  all  the  factors  in  even  the  simplest  activities.  Only 
because  the  mass  of  co-ordinations  are  fairly  well  "set"  is  it 
possible  to  direct  attention  to  new  difficulties.  Further,  these  estab- 
lished co-ordinations  are  the  tools  for  the  solution  of  problems.  The 
thoroughly  organized  and  stable  co-ordinations  of  the  eye,  the  hand, 
the  common  percepts  and  concepts,  the  norms  of  judgment — these 
are  what  enable  one  to  cope  with  new  situations.  If  in  writing 
attention  must  be  "consciously"  given  to  holding  the  pen,  to  spell- 
ing words,   to  securing  correct  grammatical    forms,   it  would  be 


38  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  ^ 

impossible  to  give  thought  to  the  composition.  The  successful, 
valuable  co-ordinations  that  stay  with  us  are  just  what  give  power 
and  make  advance  possible.  The  passing  over  of  co-ordinations 
from  the  conscious  to  the  subconscious,  and  to  the  unconscious,  is 
absolutely  essential  to  education. 

2.  Suggestion  and  imitation. — Suggestion  and  imitation  are 
closely  related  forms  of  activity.  Because  of  their  importance  in 
education  they  will  be  taken  up  in  some  detail. 

a)   Suggestion.      Professor  Baldwin  defines  suggestion  as: 

from  the  side  of  consciousness  ....  the  tendency  of  a  sensory  or  an  ideal 
state  to  be  followed  by  a  motor  state,  and  it  is  typified  by  the  abrupt  entrance 
from  without  into  consciousness  of  an  idea  or  image,  or  a  vaguely  con- 
scious stimulation,  which  tends  to  bring  about  the  muscular  or  volitional 
effects  which  ordinarily  fallow  upon  its  presence.'' 

The  only  criticism  the  writer  would  offer  here  is  on  that  part 
implied  in  the  words,  "entrance  from  without  into  conscious- 
ness." If  the  author  means  that  thought  is  affected  by  an  abso- 
lutely external  and  independent  world,  in  so  far,  from  the  standpoint 
of  instrumental  logic,  the  definition  cannot  be  allowed.  It  is 
true  that  the  "sensory"  or  "ideal  state"  does  appear  in  conscious- 
ness, but  not  "  from  without."  It  is  due  to  the  failure  of  habitual 
reactions  to  function,  and  the  "sensory  or  ideal  state"  is  the  coming 
to  consciousness  of  factors  of  this  disturbed  situation. 

Professor  Baldwin  further  says :  "The  fundamental  fact  about 
all  suggestion  ....  is,  in  my  view,  the  removal  of  inhibitions  to 
movements  brought  about  by  certain  conditions  of  consciousness, 
which  may  be  called  'suggestibility.'  "  ^®  This  statement  brings 
out  clearly  the  logical  point  to  be  emphasized.  A  suggestion  is  just 
that  which  offers  a  possible  solution  to  a  problem. 

In  discussing  "what  makes  consciousness  suggestible,"  Baldwin 
say&: 

We  may  say,  first,  that  a  suggestible  consciousness  is  one  in  which  the 
ordinary  criteria  of  belief  are  in  abeyance;  the  coefficients  of  reality  are  no 
longer  apprehended.  Consciousness  finds  all  presentations  of  equal  value,  in 
terms  of  uncritical  reality-feeling.  It  accordingly  responds  to  them  all,  each 
in  turn,  readily  and  equally.     Second,  this  state  of  things  is  due  primarily  to 

^Mental  Development:    Methods  and  Processes,  pp. -105,  106. 
"  Ibid.^  p.    107. 


THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL   THEORY  39 

a  violent  reaction  or  fixation  of  attention,  resulting  in  its  usual  monoideism, 
or  "narrowing  of  consciousness."  For  belief  is  a  motor  attitude  resting  upon 
complexity  of  presentation  and  representation.  Just  as  soon  as  this  mature 
complexity  is  destroyed,  belief  disappears,  and  all  ideas  become  free  and 
equal  in  doing  their  executive  work.*" 

From  the  point  of  view  of  instrumental  logic,  the  "criteria  of 
belief"  referred  to  here  are  the  organized  ways  of  reacting.  We 
"believe"  either,  first,  that  which  has  proven  successful  in  the  solv- 
ing of  problems,  especially  if  it  has  been  thoroughly  tested;  or, 
second,  that  which  we  "think"  would  harmonize  conflicting  factors 
though  we  may  not  yet  have  had,  or  possibly  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  cannot  have,  the  opportunity  to  test  and  verify.  The  word 
"belief"  is  often  limited  in  its  use  to  the  second.  In  either  case,  it 
is  the  co-ordination  that  harmonizes  our  experience  that  is 
"believed."  The  statement  that  when  "the  ordinary  criteria  of 
belief  are  in  abeyance"  "consciousness  finds  all  presentations  of 
equal  value"  is  objected  to.  Logically,  what  takes  place  is  this: 
The  organized  reactions  fail  to  function  and  beget  a  tension; 
before  a  readjustment  can  be  made,  old  co-ordinations,  i.  e.,  "cri- 
teria of  belief,"  are  broken  up  and  the  factors  involved  in  the 
situation  come  to  consciousness.  "Consciousness"  does  not  "respond 
to  them  all,  each  in  turn  readily  and  equally;"  the  factors  are  not 
"free  and  equal."  At  the  outset  certain  factors  appear  to  be 
more  closely  related  to  the  difficulty  and  more  likely  to  be  efficient 
in  the  solution  of  the  problem  than  others.  It  is  only  after  these 
fail  that  other  alternatives  are  tried.  It  would  be  an  exceedingly 
abnormal  condition  in  which  the  breakdown  was,  so  complete  that 
all  factors  stood  out  on  anything  like  equal  terms.  The  only  sense 
in  which  all  ideas  are  of  "equal  value"  is  that  all  of  them  are  pos- 
sibly available  factors  in  the  solution  of  the  difficulty. 

The  essential  point  in  suggestion  is  that  in  a  disturbed  situation 
a  certain  predicate  arises  which  gives  promise  of  effecting  the 
desired  result.  The  "promise"  is  the  suggestion;  that  is  what 
makes  it  a  suggestion.  Now,  in  so  far  as  in  some  particular  fea- 
ture of  that  predicate  more  than  others  lies  its  hopefulness,  that  par- 
ticular feature  might  with  reason  be  termed  the  suggestion.  It  is 
probable  that  a  number  of  suggestions  will  be  presented  before  the 
final,  successful  one  is  secured. 

"Mental  Development :     Methods  and  Processes,  p.  107. 


40  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

This  "suggestion"  operates  in  the  unconscious  field  as  well  as 
in  the  subconscious  and  conscious ;  but  in  the  unconscious  field  it  is 
reduced  simply  to  a  stimulus  which  gives  the  cue  to  the  accustomed 
response.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  such  a  cue  exists  only 
objectively.  The  "onlooker"  observes  certain  states  follow  in  serial 
order,  each  one  being  the  cue  to  the  succeeding  one.  It  is  in  this 
sense  only  that  the  term  suggestion  can  be  applied  to  unconscious 
activity.  In  the  subconscious  state  vague  ideas  are  continually 
effecting  reactions.  These  operate  where  the  habits,  not  yet  auto- 
matic, are  so  well  formed  that  the  disturbance  does  not  come  into 
the  focus  of  attention.  The  disturbance  is  too  slight  as  compared 
with  other  difficulties  that  demand  attention.  A  difficulty  that 
might  ordinarily  require  close  attention  would,  in  the  presence  of 
more  serious  difficulties,  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself,  as  it  were, 
while  the  attention  is  directed  to  the  more  serious  problems.  It  is 
within  the  field  where  consciousness  is  most  active  that  "sugges- 
tion," as  well  as  all  other  factors,  comes  to  its  full  intellectual 
value. 

It  is  clear  that  suggestion  is  an  essential  element  in  all  develop- 
ment. Using  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense,  in  which  it  stands  for 
every  factor  that  appears  in  consciousness  as  a  possible  solution  of 
a  difficulty,  it  is  present  in  all  intellectual  growth.  If  it  be  held 
that  there  are  in  experience  certain  readjustments  made  which  are 
purely  accidental,  in  these,  so  far  as  accidental,  suggestion  does  not 
operate.  Suggestion  gives  the  leverage  for  the  solution  of  prob- 
lems. If  all  factors  of  a  disturbed  situation  were  on  a  dead  level, 
if  no  one  gave  more  promise  of  a  solution  than  another,  progress 
would  be  tedious  and  fortuitous. 

An  educational  theory  must  take  into  account  this  suggestibility 
in  experience  and  recognize  its  universal  operation.  In  working 
out  an  original  demonstration  in  geometry  experience  has  shown 
that  the  first  thing  is  clearly  to  get  before  one  the  whole  situation, 
to  take  account  of  stock,  to  find  just  what  the  problem  is  and  what 
is  on  hand  to  work  from.  Sometimes  the  solution  is  then  seen  at 
once,  but  often  it  comes  only  after  long  and  careful  thinking.  At 
first,  there  may  appear  no  clue  at  all ;  usually,  however,  there  soon 
is  discovered  a  starting-point  that  appears  to  lead  in  the  right 
direction.  Following  up  this,  other  points  may  be  suggested  and 
finally  the  whole  demonstration  may  be  revealed.     Often,  however, 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  4I 

a  line  of  reasoning  is  found  to  be  fallacious,  compelling  one  to  go 
back  to  the  beginning  and  start  again.  The  whole  movement  is 
experimental,  tentative.  Suggestion  after  suggestion  is  tested  until 
a  valid  proof  is  established. 

This  description  of  actual  experience  is  taken  to  be  a  fairly 
accurate  statement  of  the  logical  movement  in  solving  any  intellec- 
tual problem.  The  difficulties  encountered  in  geography,  history, 
or  literature  are  removed  in  much  the  same  way.  In  teaching,  it  is 
of  the  first  importance  that  the  child  come  really  to  see  the  situa- 
tion, to  see  what  he  needs  and  what  he  has  to  work  from.  Then, 
if  he  is  to  get  the  full  benefit  of  a  solution,  the  child  must  be 
allowed  to  discover  points  that  suggest  a  way  out  and  to  follow  up 
these  until  he  must  abandon  them,  and  sees  why,  or  reaches  a  satis- 
factory solution.  The  temptation  is  strong  for  the  teacher  herself 
to  suggest  the  way  out.  In  her  eagerness  to  get  the  final  result, 
she  forgets  that  it  is  only  as  the  child  actually  works  out  his  own 
problems  that  they  are,  for  him,  really  worked  out,  that  only  in 
this  way  is  it  possible  for  him  fully  to  appreciate  the  final  outcome. 

In  the  education  of  the  child  the  conditions  that  surround  him 
should  provide  suggestions  for  the  solution  of  his  problems.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  they  do  provide  suggestions.  It  is  too  often  that  he 
is  not  allowed  to  use  the  suggestions  which  are  at  his  disposal ;  or, 
which  is  perhaps  more  common,  he  is  given  no  assistance  in  the 
use  of  these  suggestions.  Indeed,  the  belief  is  all  too  common  that 
the  child  has  no  means  within  his  own  experience  for  solving  his 
problems,  but  that  the  task  of  supplying  this  material  devolves  upon 
the  teacher.  Even  where  there  is  a  recognition  of  the  presence  of 
problems  in  the  child's  own  experience,  developed  in  the  on-going 
of  that  experience,  there  is  yet  a  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  fact  that 
the  means  of  solution  must  be  the  child's  own  as  well  as  the  prob- 
lem. Really  to  be  a  suggestion  to  the  child,  it  must  have  a  vital 
relation  to  his  experience ;  it  must  be  part  and  parcel  of  that  experi- 
ence.   It  must  really  suggest. 

All  exp>erience  is  not  of  equal  educational  value.  Some  fields 
are  richer  in  suggestion  than  others.  The  degree  of  suggestibility 
offered  by  any  possible  experience  depends  upon  the  relation  of 
that  experience  to  the  previous  life  of  the  individual.  Its  value, 
educationally,  is  in  just  this  degree  of  suggestibility  which  it  offers. 
The  teacher  may,  and  should,  direct  the  child's  activities  so  that  he 


42  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  TELEORY 

will  come  into  a  richer  life.  She  ought  to  lead  him  to  experience  in 
a  vital  way  not  only  that  which  will  bring  to  consciousness  latent 
problems  but  also  that  which  will  give  him  suggestions  for  the 
solving  of  his  problems.  It  is  her  privilege  to  exercise  a  large 
degree  of  influence  as  to  what,  among  many  possibilities,  the  child 
may  actually  experience.  This  is  an  important  part  of  the  teacher's 
work. 

b)  Imitation.  This  is  one  form  of  suggestion.  Professor 
Baldwin  defines  imitation  as  follows : 

There  is  in  all  the  instances  [examples  of  imitation  referred  to]  some 
kind  of  constructive  idea,  a  "copy,"  in  more  or  less  conscious  clearness,  which 
calls  the  action  out,  and  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  imitator  to  reinstate 
or  bring  about  somehow  for  himself."  ....  Wherever  there  is  life  there 
is  means  of  continuing  advantageous  stimulations  drawing  up  to  them  by- 
active  movement,  or  by  other  actions  whose  evident  purpose  is  the  same." 
....  [And,]  The  adaptation  of  all  organisms  is  secured  by  their  tendency 
to  act  so  as  to  reproduce  or  maintain  stimulations  which  are  beneficial.  In 
this  way  only  can  new  reactions  be  made  available  for  repetition,  and  so 
secured  to  habit.  But  this  reaction,  which  tends  to  secure  a  continuation  of 
its  own  stimulation,  is  exactly  the  nervous  process  of  conscious  imitation.** 

Mr.  King  criticizes  Professor  Baldwin's  view  of  imitation.** 
He  maintains  that  Professor  Baldwin  has  described  a  certain  form 
of  individual  reaction  from  the  social  side;  that  the  child  himself 
does  not  imitate;  that  the  activities  which  others  call  imitation  are 
performed  by  the  child  not  in  order  to  imitate  but  in  order  to  get 
new  experience.     Mr.   King  says : 

With  the  child  the  emphasis  is  not  on  the  copying  of  a  certain  act,  but 
on  the  attainment  of  a  certain  experience  that  comes  through  the  copying 
or  imitating.  From  the  first  beginnings  of  control,  the  child  is  seeking  to 
define  his  experience,  or  render  it  more  definite.  He  is  on  the  alert  for 
stimuli  that  will  enrich  and  enlarge  his  experience." 

From  the  standpoint  of  instrumental  logic,  Mr.  King's  point  of 
view  would  seem  to  be  more  nearly  the  truth.  The  statement  of 
Professor  Baldwin  that,  "Wherever  there  is  life  there  is  means  of 
continuing  advantageous  stimulations  by  drawing  up  to  them  by 
active  movement,  or  by  other  actions  whose  evident  purpose  is  the 
same,"  is,  logically,  but  the  means  by  which,  in  a  disturbed  situa- 

*^ Mental  Development:     Methods  and  Processes,  p.  267. 

*'  Ibid.,  pp.   277,   278.  "  Psychology  of  Child  Development,  chap.  x. 

*^Ibid.,  p.  278.  ""Ibid.,  p.  119. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  43 

tion,  experience  tends  to  readjust  itself  for  its  further  on-going. 
Mr.  King  says  truly  that  imitation  is  but  suggestion  looked  at  from 
the  social  side.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  onlooker,  the  experi- 
ence of  others  is  more  or  less  adequately  reproduced  in  the 
individual.  The  reason  the  child  imitates  is  that  the  social  environ- 
ment offers  certain  experiences  which  help  him  "find"  himself.  Just 
why  the  individual  finds  it  desirable  to  respond  in  an  "imitative" 
way  can  be  accounted  for,  in  part,  by  like  inherited  tendencies ;  we 
have  inherited  from  a  common  ancestry.  Also,  being  an  individual 
in  relation  with  other  individuals,  a  part  of  a  social  whole,  the  good 
of  each  individual  is  attained  in  co-operation  with  other  individuals. 
It  would  seem  to  follow  naturally  that  acts  which  one  individual 
performs  would  be  practically  the  same  that  others  in  the  same 
social  group  would  perform.  The  value  of  imitation,  as  in  all 
forms  of  suggestion,  is  that  it  enables  one  to  solve  problems. 
Because  the  problems  of  the  child  are  largely  the  problems  of  the 
race  and  because  he  has  inherited  tendencies  to  act  as  the  race 
has  acted,  naturally  he  will  tend  to  solve  his  problems  as  the  race 
has  solved  them.  Further,  the  social  group  in  which  the  child  now 
lives  has  largely  the  same  problems  and  the  same  inherited  tenden- 
cies that  he  has,  and,  hence,  their  activities  will  in  a  measure  be 
such  as  he  wishes  to  perform;  consequently,  to  "imitate"  his 
fellows  will  be  the  most  natural,  as  well  as  a  most  helpful,  thing 
to  do.  Over  and  above  this  there  is  the  conscious  recognition, 
which  the  individual  comes  to  have,  that  he  can  learn  from  others 
and  thus  come  to  realize  himself  more  economically  and  more  satis- 
factorily. The  "unconscious"  tendency  to  imitate,  if  there  be  such, 
seems  to  be  due  to  inheritance. 

As  stated  above,  imitation  aids  in  the  solution  of  problems. 
There  is  always  a  larger  whole,  a  thought-situation,  in  conflict, 
which  the  imitation  is  somehow  to  help  in  readjusting.  The  real 
nature  of  imitation  is  brought  out  by  reference  to  the  fact  that  no 
one  imitates  everything.  There  is  vastly  more  that  one  does  not 
imitate  than  that  he  does.  One  imitates  an  act  because  the  imi- 
tation of  that  particular  act  will  help  solve  a  problem;  the  others 
will  not. 

On  the  educational  side  what  was  said  of  suggestion  applies  to 
imitation.  In  organized  society,  to  realize  hopes  and  ambitions  it 
is  necessary  to  conform  to  social  usage,  and  to  conform  is  to  imi- 


44  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

tate.  The  child  finds  a  wealth  of  material — ^beliefs,  customs,  insti- 
tutions— which  he  may  seize  upon  and  utilize.  Through  imitation 
the  entire  social  life  becomes  available  for  the  solution  of  his 
problems.  The  whole  range  of  human  activities,  present  and  past, 
are  put  under  tribute  to  the  individual.  The  imitating  of  primitive 
racial  activities  is  a  common  "method"  in  the  schools.  The  grow- 
ing complexity  of  social  and  industrial  life  makes  the  task  of 
interpreting  his  conditions  increasingly  difficult  to  the  child.  By 
going  back  to  those  primitive  methods  by  which  his  ancestors 
solved  their  problems  in  a  simple  way,  the  child  can  appreciate 
more  easily  the  factors  involved  in  these  same  problems  and  the 
principles  according  to  which  they  are  solved.  Imitating  these 
simpler  forms  of  activity,  the  child  comes  better  to  appreciate  the 
meaning  of  his  complex  environment.  The  method  is  logical  pro- 
vided the  difficulty  which  the  child  is  to  solve  is  one  that  has  grown 
up  out  of  his  own  experience,  a  real  difficulty  for  him;  and  if  his 
experience  has  been  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  appreciate  the  his- 
torical material  used.  The  danger  here  of  making  unwarranted 
abstractions  is  evident. 

The  .psychological  basis  of  imitation  is  in  preformed  co-ordina- 
tions. In  all  "forms  of  thought"  old  modes  of  reaction  persist  and 
tend  to  reappear  when  occasion  offers.  This  tendency  of  previous 
experience  to  persist  in  the  form  of  definite  co-ordinations  is  of  ut- 
most importance  in  education.  The  whole  theory  of  apperception,  so 
strongly  emphasized  by  the  Herbartians,  is  just  this  tendency  of 
previously  formed  co-ordinations  to  "assimilate"  new  experience, 
and  is,  as  Baldwin  has  pointed  out,  a  form  of  imitation.  Old 
habits  tend  to  persist  without  modification  or,  to  state  it  on  the 
intellectual  side,  we  would  explain  all  new  experience  by  means  of 
old  ideas.  In  any  case,  after  a  readjustment  has  been  made,  after 
the  new  experience  has  been  interpreted,  related,  and  has  taken  its 
place  as  a  part  of  our  "universe,"  it  will  be  found  that,  after  all,  our 
experience  has  not  undergone  any  very  great  change.  While  it  is 
undoubtedly  true  that  every  new  experience  begets  some  modifica- 
tion, yet  in  those  situations  which  necessitate  a  very  profound  modi- 
fication of  established  principles  the  change  is  slight  as  compared 
with  the  vast  field  of  practically  unmodified  experience.  It  is  just 
because  there  is  so  much  that,  at  any  given  time,  does  not  undergo 
serious  change  that  one  is  able  to  "understand"  his   experience. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  45 

The  child  whom  the  teacher  would  conduct  into  entirely  new  fields 
of  thought,  into  experiences  that  have  no  close  relation  to  his  past 
life,  is  placed  in  a  situation  where  growth  is  impossible.  He  is 
deprived  of  the  tools  necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  task 
set  for  him.  Imitation  and  suggestion  function  adequately  only 
within  a  thought-situation  that  has  developed  in  the  midst  of  real 
life  problems;  which  problems  have  their  whole  meaning  in  the 
failure  to  function  of  certain  previously  formed  co-ordinations.  In 
so  far  as  these  co-ordinations  do  persist,  in  so  far  is  there  imitation. 
3.  Attention  and  interest. — Education  consists  in  the  recon- 
struction of  past  experience  and  the  consequent  building  up  of  a 
larger  and  better  organized  world  of  present  experience.  This 
reconstruction,  on  the  logical  side,  is  the  thought  process  which 
takes  place  within  a  disturbed  situation.  It  is  in  this  disturbed 
situation  that  attention  is  active.  Wherever  there  is  thought  there 
is  attention.  Any  object  of  thought  is  an  object  of  attention.  To 
be  attentive  means  that  thought  is  active.  The  term  is  applied, 
particularly,  to  a  continuous  application  of  thought  to  some  specific 
purpose.  The  actual  work  of  accommodation,  of  readjustment,  is 
going  on  at  a  point  that  is  called  the  point  of  attention.**  Attention 
has  been  likened  to  vision  where  some  one  object,  or  objects,  occu- 
pies the  center  of  vision  surrounded  by  other  objects  that  become 
less  distinct  the  farther  they  are  from  the  center.     Royce  says: 

Present  at  any  one  time  to  one's  mind  is  a  smaU  portion  of  the  flowing 
stream  of  mental  contents,  in  which  one  can  in  general  distinguish  at  least 
two,  and  sometimes  more,  elements  of  content  (perceptions,  feelings,  images, 
ideas,  words,  impulses,  motives,  hopes,  intentions,  or  the  like),  while  beside  and 
beneath  what  one  can  distinguish  there  is  the  body  of  the  stream  or  (to 
change  the  metaphor)  the  background  of  consciousness,  where  one  can  no 
longer  distinguish  ans^hing  in  detail,  although  in  some  other  moment  one 
may  easily  note  how  the  whole  background  has  changed." 

This  "small  portion  of  the  flowing  stream"  is  the  center  of 
attention,  the  "focal  point."  This  focal  point  is  just  where,  in  the 
disturbed  situation,  the  breakdown  is  most  serious.  In  any  such 
situation,  the  portion  to  be  reconstructed  is  usually  a  very  small 
part  of  the  whole.  To  repeat :  it  is  just  because  the  great  mass  of 
habits  persist  and  are  available   as   means,   that   any   solution  is 

*•  Angell,  Psychology,  p.  64. 

*''  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  85. 


46  THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL   THEORY 

possible.  Any  very  serious  derangement  would  mean  a  collapse. 
In  this  disturbed  situation  the  whole  force  of  thought,  the  whole 
attention,  centers  in  the  point  of  difficulty,  while  the  great  bulk  of 
organized  life  becomes  the  means  for  solving  the  problem.  When 
the  given  point  is  adjusted,  the  stress,  and  so  attention,  is  trans- 
formed to  some  other  point. 

Attention  is  bound  up  with  interest.  One  attends  to  the  things 
in  which  one  is  interested.  Dr.  Dewey  defines  interest  as  "impulse 
functioning  with  reference  to  an  idea  of  self-expression."  *^  There 
is  always  the  outgoing  activity  directed  toward  some  object  for  the 
purpose  of  realizing  certain  value. 

The  point  to  be  emphasized  in  this  connection  is  that  this  effort 
for  self-expression,  this  interest,  is  due  to  a  disturbed  situation. 
So  long  as  all  goes  smoothly  there  is  no  interest.  There  is  no  dif- 
ferentiation of  experience  into  an  object  of  value  set  over  against 
the  subject.  But  when  the  impulse  is  active,  when  the  end  is  per- 
ceived, when  the  value  involved  is  ,  recognized,  and  yet  some 
difficulty  is  in  the  way  of  its  realization,  then  we  have  interest ;  and, 
like  attention,  the  interest  centers  in  the  point  of  difficulty ;  further, 
one  is  interested  in  anything  and  everything  that  promises  to  master 
the  difficulty,  to  solve  the  problem.  An  individual  becomes  intensely 
interested  in  the  thing  he  needs  in  order  to  accomplish  his  purpose. 
When  the  object  is  secured,  the  end  realized,  that  particular  object 
disappears  from  thought  and  new  objects  of  interest  arise. ' 

The  connection  between  interest  and  attention  is  now  clear. 
Both  refer  to  one  and  the  same  psychological  process,  the  recon- 
struction of  experience  in  a  disturbed  situation.  There  is  always 
present  a  problem  more  or  less  definitely  defined.  To  that  problem 
one  attends  and  in  that  problem  is  one  interested.  The  two  terms 
refer  not  to  different  facts,  but  to  different  attitudes  that  may  be 
taken  with  reference  to  the  same  facts.  When  one  is  thinking  of 
the  activity  of  the  thought  process  as  directed  toward  some  object 
of  interest,  it  is  "attention;"  when  thinking  of  the  activity  as 
actually  functioning,  as  in  process  of  realizing  the  desired  end,  it  is 
"interest." 

There  is  a  disposition  among  psychologists  to  make  emotion,  or 
feeling,  a  characteristic  element  of  interest.  Unquestionably  the 
"feeling  tone"  is  present  throughout  the  entire  disturbed  situation. 

**  Interest  as  Related  to  Will,  p.  230. 


THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  47 

When  habits  fail  to  function  there  is  a  tension.  This  tension  is  the 
basis  of  emotion.  Both  interest  and  emotion  are  due  direct!}'  to  this 
obstructing  of  activity.  To  make  one  a  characteristic  of  the  other 
is  to  misinterpret  the  whole  psychological  process.  The  fact  is,  a 
highly  emotional  state  indicates  a  minimum  of  functioning.  As  the 
process  of  reconstruction  begins  actually  to  make  progress,  the 
emotion  diminishes  while  the  interest  is  just  coming  to  its 
maximum. 

Attention  and  interest  are  necessarily  implied  in  the  educative 
process.  If  education  is  the  reconstruction  of  experience,  if  this 
reconstruction  takes  place  because  of  the  vital  interest  in  realizing 
the  purposes  of  the  self,  if  thought  is  consciously  to  attend  to  that 
reconstruction,  and  if  control  is  to  be  secured  only  through  such 
attention  directed  toward  interesting  objects,  the  absolute  necessity 
of  securing  attention  and  interest  is  evident.  But  the  problem  for 
the  teacher  is  not  so  much  how  to  get  the  child  to  attend,  as  how  to 
get  him  to  attend  to  certain  things  that  she  considers  valuable.  The 
difficulty  here  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  teacher's  interests  are  not  the 
same  as  the  child's.  The  solution  lies  in  their  unification.  So  long 
as  the  activities  proposed  by  the  teacher  do  not  appeal  to  the 
child,  so  long  will  he  continually  revert  to  those  that  do  interest  him. 
As  a  rule  the  child  will  readily  respond  to  a  demand  on  his  atten- 
tion. If  the  "work"  proposed  appeals  to  the  child  as  of  value,  if  he 
believes  the  doing  of  it  will  give  certain  desirable  results,  there  is 
no  lack  of  interest.  The  child  is  eager  to  do  things  that  are,  to  him, 
worth  while.  If  the  "work"  does  not  interest  him,  often  there  will 
be  divided  attention;  apparent  outward  attention  may  be  accom- 
panied with  continual  mind-wandering.  Really  to  direct  the  child's 
thought  the  teacher  must  seize  upon  points  that  are  of  vital  interest 
to  him,  real  problems  in  his  experience.  The  available  points  may 
have  but  remote  connection  with  the  end  which  the  teacher  has  in 
view ;  but  by  getting  hold  of  these  real  interests,  there  is  a  chance  to 
direct  the  child's  activities  into  the  more  fruitful  fields  of  activity. 
When  the  problem  proposed  by  the  teacher  really  becomes  the 
child's  problem,  there  is  no  question  of  attention  and  interest ;  nor 
will  there  be  any  question  of  genuine  intellectual  advancement. 

The  practical  application  of  this  theory  is  not  so  impossible  as 
it  may  seem  at  first  glance.  The  teacher  sees  the  child  laboring 
under  certain  difficulties  that  would  be  removed  if  he  understood  a 


48  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

certain  principle.  For  instance,  in  beginning  the  study  of  geography 
the  child  has  difficulty  in  getting  relative  distances  and  locations 
that  might  be  cleared  up  if  he  understood  the  use  and  meaning  of  a 
map.  He  has  but  a  vague  notion  of  the  problem  and  is  entirely 
ignorant  of  how  to  solve  it.  To  refer  to  the  ordinary  political  map 
would  only  add  to  his  perplexity.  There  could  be  no  possible 
intrinsic  interest  in  studying  it.  The  problem  now  for  the  teacher 
is  to  seize  upon  a  real  but  simple  difficulty  of  the  child's  of  which 
he  is,  or  may  easily  become,  conscious  and  which  the  child  may 
clear  up  in  his  own  mind  by  a  crude  drawing.  From  this  starting- 
point  more  complex  situations  may  be  worked  out  and  the  notion 
of  expressing  relative  distance  and  location  graphically  thus  be 
enlarged  and  systematized  so  that  the  ordinary  map  is  intelligible, 
and  becomes  the  efficient  instrument  for  interpreting  the  previously 
vague  geographical  notions.  The  fundamental  point  is  that  genu- 
ine interest  in  a  crude  drawing,  or  in  a  more  elaborate  map,  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  an  instrument,  a  tool,  by  which  the  child  is  able  to 
solve  a  real  difficulty.  So  long  as  the  child  is  engaged  in  the  solu- 
tion of  a,  to  him,  real  difficulty  there  will  be  no  lack  of  attention  or 
interest. 

4.  The  judgment. — Under  logical  theory  the  nature  of  reflective 
thought  was  discussed.  It  was  shown  that  not  all  experience  comes 
to  consciousness  as  reflective  thought,  that  in  early  childhood, 
among  savages,  unciviHzed  people,  and  more  or  less  in  the  life  of 
every  man  readjustments  are  made  which  are  not  "consciously" 
attended  to.  These  readjustments  cannot  be  said  to  be  "out  of 
consciousness,"  but  they  are  not  in  the  focus  of  attention.  The 
term  subconscious  is  used  to  indicate  this  field  of  experience. 

Reflective  thought  is  the  field  of  conscious  readjustment.  Here 
the  individual  is  fully  aware  of  the  need  of  readjustment  and  "con- 
sciously" casts  about  to  overcome  the  difficulty.  The  act  of  read- 
justing a  disturbed  situation  is  called  the  judgment.  The  term  is 
applied  particularly  to  reflective  readjustment.  In  the  judgment 
the  point  of  difficulty,  the  subject,  is  singled  out,  and  co-ordinations 
that  still  persist  are  selected  as  possible  predicates  to  explain  the 
subject.  It  might  happen  that  many  possible  predicates  would  be 
"tried  on"  before  success  is  attained.  Attention  was  called  to  the 
fact  that  the  final  outcome  of  the  judgment  is-  a  larger  co-ordination 
which  includes  within  itself  the  contending  factors. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  49 

The  essential  characteristic  of  the  process  of  education  is  this 
act  of  judging,  this  reconstructive  movement  which  is  the  exact 
point  of  growth.  Just  here,  and  only  here,  is  there  progress.  The 
general  outline  of  a  co-ordination,  or  point  of  view,  may  be  formu- 
lated under  some  particular  stress  and  the  details  worked  out 
gradually.  Or  one  may  be  hardly  conscious  of  the  first  beginning; 
the  entire  process  from  inception  to  final  form  may  have  come 
about  gradually  and  with  no  serious  break  at  any  point.  In  any 
case  the  changed  attitude  is  due  to  a  reconstruction  of  previous 
co-ordinations  or  points  of  view.  To  be  development,  there  must 
be  continued  readjustment,  continued  acts  of  judgment.  These 
acts  occur  in  response  to  specific  demands.  To  be  of  value  these 
demands  must  be  genuine;  they  must  appeal  to  the  child  himself  as 
actually  worth  while.  They  must  have  arisen  out  of  the  child's  own 
activity  and  present  an  actual  bar  to  his  progress;  difficulties  that 
he  must  overcome  if  he  is  to  accomplish  his  purposes.  He  will 
then  be  eager  to  solve  these  problems  just  because  they  are  his 
problems,  and  his  life. 

To  judge  from  common  practice,  education,  as  to  content,  is  the 
acquisition  of  certain  organized  material  that  is  considered  neces- 
sary for  the  individual's  future  welfare.  When  this  body  of 
"truth"  is  comprehended,  when  the  facts  and  principles  in  them- 
selves and  in  their  relation  to  each  other  are  understood,  there  is 
power,  ability  to  appreciate  life  and  accomplish  purposes.  Truth  is 
objective.  It  is  something  external  to  and  independent  of  the 
human  mind  and  must  be  taken  over  into  the  understanding.  The 
problem  of  the  teacher  is  how  to  bring  about  this  transfer  effect- 
ively and  economically.  This  seems  to  be  the  common  view  of 
education.  There  is  an  almost  universal  lack  of  appreciation  of 
the  fact  that  the  subject-matter  of  education,  the  material  upon 
which  or  with  which  thought  operates,  is  material  of  thought's  own 
construction.  It  is  built  up  out  of  the  individual's  own  experience 
through  successive  acts  of  judgment.  Truth  that  someone  else 
developed  has  absolutely  no  educational  value  to  the  child  except 
as  it  becomes  part  and  parcel  of  his  own  experience.  Accredited 
truth,  facts,  and  principles  that  have  become  established,  are  invalu- 
able. The  heritage  of  the  race  cannot  be  ignored.  But  only  as  the 
experience  of  the  race  suggests  to  the  individual  the  solution  of  his 
own  problems,  the  interpretation  of  his  own  experience,  can  it  have 


50  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

any  real  educational  value.  Without  an  act  of  judgment,  without 
an  actual  reconstruction  of  one's  belief,  there  can  be  no  education. 

History,  arithmetic,  geography,  grammar,  are  taught  as 
a  coherent  body  of  valuable  truth.  The  emphasis  is  upon  the 
content,  the  body  of  truth;  as  though  the  possession  in  memory  of 
this  truth  is  the  thing  of  prime  importance.  The  child  is  to  be  got 
ready  for  living.  He  is  to  be  equipped  for  future  trials.  There  is 
almost  a  total  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  the  really  impor- 
tant thing  is  for  the  child  to  interpret  and  organize  his  present 
vague  and  disconnected  experiences.  The  only  genuine  excuse  for 
studying  the  facts  of  history  now  is  that  just  now  the  child  needs 
these  facts.  The  time  to  study  the  facts  of  history  systematically 
and  logically  arranged  is  when  the  child  has  come  to  feel  that  he  is 
a  part  of  a  larger  social  whole;  that  the  experiences  of  this  larger 
whole  both  present  and  past  are  a  part  of  his  life,  or  at  least  are 
vitally  connected  with  his  life;  and  that  a  knowledge  of  this  racial 
development,  particularly  the  trials  and  vicissitudes  of  his  own 
nation,  does  give  his  own  experience  added  value  and  meaning. 
Only  gradually  does  the  child  become  distinctly  conscious  of  the 
full  value  of  this  historical  material.  That  he  does  feel  its  worth 
and  does  by  its  help  actually  reconstruct  and  better  organize  his 
experiences  is  the  genuine  test  of  its  value  to  him. 

There  must  be  a  large  degree  of  freedom  in  education.  The 
child  must  be  free  to  formulate  problems  and  free  to  exercise  his 
judgment  in  solving  them.  As  it  is  impossible  to  know  all  the 
child's  past  experience;  as  it  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  know  all 
his  problems  and  his  consequent  interests ;  so  it  is  impossible  to  pro- 
vide in  detail  in  advance  for  his  course  of  development.  The  "in 
detail"  is  the  point  of  emphasis  here.  The  educator  ought  to 
understand  the  laws  of  mental  growth  and  acquaint  himself  with 
the  conditions  under  which  the  child  has  been  and  is  developing; 
he  should  know  something  of  society,  the  direction  of  its  move- 
ments and  the  probable  demands,  in  a  general  way,  that  society 
will  make  on  the  child  when  mature.  With  this  information  it  is 
possible  to  lay  out  along  broad  lines  a  curriculum  into  which  the 
average  child  will  "fit,"  and  greatly  to  facilitate  his  growth.  But 
just  what  this  particular  child  at  this  particular  time  will  be  inter- 
ested in,  what  will  be  his  problem,  no  one  can  foretell.  It  is  the 
duty  of  the   teacher   who  has   the   child   in   charge   to  study   his 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  5 1 

immediate  needs,  to  supply  in  detail  the  conditions  essential  for 
his  growth;  but  the  child  must  be  free  to  react  upon  these  condi- 
tions. The  teacher  may  be  of  assistance  in  helping  the  child  "find" 
his  problems  and,  especially,  may  the  teacher  put  him  into  the  way 
of  solving  them,  but  the  real  work  must  be  done  by  the  child  him- 
self; he  must  actually  solve  his  problem,  actually  reconstruct  his 
point  of  view,  if  there  is  to  be  any  real  growth.  Above  all 
the  child  needs  a  rich  environment,  intelligent  direction, 
and  opportunity  to  initiate  and  solve  his  own  problems.  These  are 
the  conditions  that  make  for  sound  judgment  and  intelligent 
development ;  these  the  school  should  provide  for  the  child. 

V.      THE  HYPOTHETICAL  CHARACTER  OF  EDUCATION 

Under  logical  theory  there  were  discussed  the  formation  and 
testing  of  hypotheses,  the  question  of  the  thoroughly  hypothetical 
nature  of  the  judgment,  and  the  processes  of  induction  and  deduc- 
tion in  the  formation  of  general  principles.  The  purpose  was  to 
show  that  knowledge  is  essentially  hypothetical.  By  "knowledge" 
is  here  meant  those  co-ordinations  that  are  constructed  in  order  to 
interpret,  or  harmonize,  a  problematic  situation;  and  they  are 
accepted  as  knowledge,  or  "truth,"  so  long  as  they  satisfy  the 
demand. 

Knowledge,  at  any  point  in  experience,  gets  its  validity  in  its 
success  in  accomplishing  what  thought  sets  out  to  do.  With  further 
experience  there  is  always  the  possibility  that  a  particular  truth, 
apparently  fixed  and  sure  and  certain,  may  undergo  revision.  But  the 
belief  is  next  to  universal  that  education  consists  largely  in  acquir- 
ing certain  information — laws,  principles,  facts — that  is  fixed, 
unchangeable,  and  true,  independent  of  thought.  Knowledge  is 
stamped  with  authority.  It  is  accepted  as  final.  The  only  question, 
if  a  question  is  raised  here  at  all,  is  in  getting  real  knowledge. 
If  "real"  it  is  absolute. 

If  the  instrumental  type  of  logic  is  a  true  interpretation  of  the 
function  of  thought  this  whole  attitude  so  characteristic  of  current 
education  is  absolutely  and  fundamentally  wrong.  Education  is  a 
process  of  evolution;  each  individual  builds  up  his  own  world  of 
reality,  of  knowledge,  of  truth,  out  of  the  products  of  his  own 
activity.  That  only  is  my  truth  which  enables  me  to  "understand" 
my  experience.  Truth  comes  in  the  interpreting  of  given  facts  of 
experience.      This    interpretation   consists,    logically,   as    has   been 


52  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

pointed  out,  in  forming  a  new  co-ordination,  being  the  readjust- 
ment of  a  disturbed  situation  in  which  the  "facts  of  experience" 
have  been  at  odds  with  each  other.  Further  experience  may  com- 
pel a  radical  modification  of  the  first  point  of  view.  Real  growth, 
genuine  education,  is  just  this  continual  reinterpretation  of  experi- 
ence. 

A  geographical  fact,  for  instance,  does  not  really  become 
knowledge  to  the  child  until  it,  for  him,  has  assumed  vital  connec- 
tion with  the  world  of  reality  as  he  sees  it.  There  must  have  been 
such  a  readjustment  of  his  habits,  his  way  of  looking  at  things, 
as  will  include  and  account  for  this  bit  of  experience.  Further- 
more, and  the  point  so  often  overlooked,  this  readjustment  will  not 
be  made  until  there  appears  some  demand  for  it;  there  must  be  a 
problem,  a  difficulty,  however  slight,  which  calls  for  this  readjust- 
ment. So  long  as  a  fact  remains  disconnected,  exists  as  mere 
information,  it  has  not  become  genuine  knowledge  at  all.  When 
the  fact  is  interpreted,  it  not  only  now  takes  on  a  modified  meaning, 
but  there  is  more  or  less  modification  of  other  truth.  Future 
experience  is  likely  still  further  to  alter  its  meaning.  It  is  this  con- 
tinued modification  of  experience  present  in  all  development  that 
makes  education  essentially  hypothetical. 

The  truth  of  this  theory  is  demonstrated  in  actual,  practical 
experience.  The  "objective"  physical  world  and  the  "subjective" 
thought  world  arise  out  of  a  unitary  experience.  The  same  fact  is 
now  regarded  as  external  truth,  and  again  as  merely  subjective. 
The  accepted  explanations  of  the  movements  of  the  earth  and  other 
physical  laws  are  instances  of  such  data  which  were  once  regarded 
as  mere  ideas,  possible  explanations  of  certain  phenomena,  but 
which  have  come  to  be  regarded  as  absolute  fact.  It  has  already 
been  pointed  out  that  the  criterion  for  the  acceptance  or  rejection 
of  a  given  datum  as  fact  or  idea  is  a  thoroughly  practical  one;  that 
so  long  as  laws  and  facts  meet  the  practical  demands  upon  them, 
they  are  fixtures ;  in  so  far  as  they  fail  we  modify  our  conception 
of  them  and  they  cease  to  be  to  us  just  what  they  were. 

This  hypothetical  character  pervades  the  entire  world  of  physical 
objects — ground,  trees,-  animals,  our  bodies — though  most  men 
would  abhor  the  suggestion  that  their  interpretation  of  such  reality 
is  a  construction  of  thought.  But  is  the  conception  of  a  material 
substance  anything  more  or  less  than  a  postulate  which  thought  has 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  53 

set  up  in  order  to  account  for  certain  experiences?  There  are 
color,  form,  touch,  smell,  taste.  Thought  is  not  satisfied  to  look 
upon  these  as  distinct,  separate  experiences  that  are  merely  sub- 
jective. The  notion  of  a  material  substance  which  somehow  bears 
these  qualities  does,  at  least  in  a  measure,  satisfy  the  human  mind, 
though  it  must  be  recognized  that  "substance"  is  a  purely  hypo- 
thetical creation.  All  one  can  really  "know"  are  these  qualities; 
the  explanation  is  hypothetical. 

The  conception  of  law  is  built  up  from  experience.  Take  the 
law  of  gravitation.  One  is  sure  of  certain  experiences.  To  account 
for  and  harmonize  these  experiences,  there  has  been  formulated  the 
law  of  gravitation.  No  one  doubts  but  that  the  falling  of  bodies  has 
been  experienced  by  the  human  mind  ever  since  the  earliest  stages 
of  evolution.  But  there  came  a  time  when  thought  could  no  longer 
accept  this  as  a  brute  fact.  It  must  be  explained  in  some  way. 
The  first  conception  of  the  law  was  undoubtedly  regarded  as  a 
mere  hypothesis,  a  possible  solution  of  the  problem.  In  its  first  form 
it  was,  no  doubt,  exceedingly  crude  and  incomplete.  Further 
observation,  testing,  and  revision  brought  it  to  a  point  where  it 
did  satisfy  thought;  though  additional  experience  may  have 
demanded,  and  may  yet  demand,  further  revision.  If  the  law  of 
gravitation  is  now  regarded  as  fixed  and  absolute,  it  is  only 
because,  just  now,  it  is  accepted;  there  is  no  question  up;  it  is  meet- 
ing the  demands  upon  it.  Generally  speaking,  all  law,  however 
absolute  it  may  now  be  regarded,  has  had  just  such  a  history. 

The  whole  vast  field  of  scientific  investigation  presents  indis- 
putable proof  of  this  hypothetical  nature  of  "truth."  All  scientists 
recognize  the  use  of  the  hypothesis  in  arriving  at  their  conclusions. 
The  more  profound  thinkers  recognize  the  hypothetical  character 
of  these  conclusions.  The  history  of  any  science  presents  a  succes- 
sion of  hypotheses  put  forth  with  the  hope,  or  belief,  that  they 
would  satisfy  the  demands  of  experience.  A  given  hypothesis  is 
accepted  for  a  time,  only  later  to  be  discarded  for  a  more  hopeful 
one.  The  present  status  of  each  science  represents  its  present  stage 
of  advancement;  the  future  will  bring  new  experiences  and  new 
revisions. 

The  introduction  of  the  laboratory  method  in  the  schools  is  an 
attempt  to  approach  certain  study-subjects  from  the  standpoint  of 
scientific  inquiry.    In  so  far  as  this  method  encourages  a  spirit  of 


54  THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

investigation  and  the  formulation  of  hypotheses  to  "explain"  dis- 
coveries, it  has  the  sanction  of  sound  logical  theory.  That  method 
which  uses  laboratory  experiments  merely  to  "prove"  laws  that 
are  regarded  as  final  statements  of  truth  is  wholly  devoid  of  the 
true  scientific  spirit.  The  laboratory  method  has  been  confined 
almost  wholly  to  the  teaching  of  the  sciences  in  secondary  schools 
and  higher  institutions.  The  spirit  of  investigation  should  be 
extended  to  other  subjects  of  study  and  down  into  the  elementary 
school.  There  is  no  reason  why  geography  and  history,  for 
example,  should  not  be  taught  from  this  standpoint. 

Let  instruction  be  given  from  the  standpoint  of  the  child's 
need,  and  the  study  of  particular  subjects  be  developed  from  this 
point  of  view.  The  average  child  is  eager  to  get  information. 
Questions  arise  on  almost  every  conceivable  subject.  Attention 
needs  only  to  be  given  to  some  particular  phase  of  his  experience 
and  the  questions  are  multiplied.  The  child  has  the  spirit  of 
inquiry.  The  teacher  has  only  to  utilize  and  direct  this  tendency. 
The  objection  may  be  raised  that  with  such  a  method  it  would  be 
impossible  to  develop  a  subject  logically.  Such  objection  would 
naturally  come  from  one  who  exalts  the  subject-matter.  But  if 
knowledge  for  the  child  has  value  only  in  reference  to  his  need, 
the  objection  is  groundless.  The  child  must  learn  to  arrange  his 
own  subject-matter  and,  hence,  it  must  be  after  he  gets  it.  The 
skilful  teacher  will  so  direct  the  child's  activities  in  securing  this 
subject-matter  that  the  problem  of  logical  arrangement  will  be 
very  greatly  simplified. 

Recognition  of  the  fundamentally  hypothetical  character  of 
knowledge  and  of  the  process  by  which  it  is  continuously  developing 
is  essential  to  a  full  appreciation  of  the  nature  of  education.  The 
static  view  of  truth  tends  to  stagnation;  the  dynamic  view  inspires 
continuous  growth  and  development. 

CONCLUSION 

The  problem  which  confronts  the  practical  teacher  is  this: 
"How  can  the  child's  activities  be  so  directed  that  while  he  is  doing 
things  that  are  interesting,  in  the  normal,  natural  way,  he  will  at 
the  same  time  be  getting  that  experience,  that  knowledge,  and  that 
training  which  will  best  fit  him  for  life?"  The  chief  difficulty,  as 
pointed  out  above,  lies  in  seizing  upon  those  interests  of  the  child 
which  may  be  so  directed  as  to  get  the  sort  of  experience  needed. 


THE   LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  55 

The  tendency  has  been  to  go  to  one  of  two  extremes;  either  to 
emphasize  the  individuahty  of  the  child  to  the  exclusion  of  social 
demands,  or,  as  is  more  usual,  to  make  the  social  demands  para- 
mount and  ignore  the  individual.  Too  many  teachers  see  only  one 
or  the  other  of  these  courses  open  to  them.  They  fail  to  see  that 
each  is  an  abstraction.  When  it  is  remembered  that  the  child  is 
what  he  is  because  of  the  whole  past  experience  and  development 
of  the  human  race,  that  he  is  a  product  of  all  the  past;  and  when  it 
is  remembered  that  every  other  individual,  and  all  those  tendencies 
and  characteristics  and  institutions  which  go  to  make  up  the  sum 
total  of  present  social  life,  are  also  products  of  that  same  past ;  it  is 
not  so  strange  a  thought  that  the  child  in  his  inherited  characteris- 
tics, impulses,  and  interests  would  be  fitted  exactly  to  the  society 
in  which  he  lives.  Indeed,  it  would  be  a  strange  thing  if  the  funda- 
mental impulses  and  interests  of  the  child  did  not  come  to  their 
realization  just  in  this  social  life  about  him.  Further,  the  whole 
environment  of  the  child  from  birth  has  been  just  this  same  social 
life.  Both  the  inherited  tendencies  and  social  environment  go  to 
make  the  individual,  in  his  inmost  tendencies  and  interests,  fitted 
for  the  social  life  that  he  is  to  live. 

The  practical  problem  is  how  to  discover  these  fundamental 
tendencies  and  give  them  proper  direction.  The  following  sugges- 
tions are  offered  as  an  aid  to  the  solution  of  this  problem.  To  be 
brief,  the  discussion  will  be  limited  to  the  work  of  the  lower  grades 
of  the  elementary  school.  It  is  in  these  lower  grades  that  we  find 
the  material  offered  to  the  child  most  at  variance  with  his  inter- 
ests. In  the  upper  grades,  in  the  high  school,  and  in  college,  the 
student  usually  becomes  vitally  interested  in  the  subjects  of  study. 
Gradually,  the  child  comes  to  appreciate  the  value  to  him  of  history, 
geography,  literature,  and  other  subjects.  The  extent  of  this 
appreciation  measures  the  value  of  any  subject  of  study.  It  is  just 
because  the  child  on  entering  school  has  not  come  to  have  this 
appreciation,  and  in  most  cases  is  not  expected  to  have,  that  the 
work  is  dead  and  formal.  Most  courses  of  study  are  based  upon 
the  assumption  that  the  chief  business  of  the  first  few  years  of  the 
elementary  school  is  to  teach  the  child  reading,  writing,  and  the 
elementary  number  operations ;  that  is,  the  child  is  to  be  taught  the 
tools  of  learning,  so  that  he  may  be  prepared  in  the  following  years 
really  to  get  knowledge.     On  the  contrary,  the  child  of  six  ought 


56  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

to  be  doing  things  in  which  he  is  as  vitally  interested  as  is  the  adult 
in  his  work.  The  knowledge  acquired  ought  to  come  as  the  interpre- 
tation, or  understanding,  of  his  experience.  It  follows  that  the 
child  ought  to  be  taught  the  tools  of  learning  in  order  to  get  a 
vitally  interesting  content,  and  he  ought  not  to  he  taught  them 
until  he  needs  them.    How  to  do  this  is  a  problem. 

When  a  child  enters  school  the  first  duty  of  the  teacher  is  to 
acquaint  herself  with  his  natural  disposition  and  primary  interests. 
Emphasis  should  be  put  upon  the  motor  side;  allow  the  child  to  do 
interesting  things — play  games,  dramatize  stories,  and  engage  in 
various  sorts  of  handwork.  The  first  consideration  is  that  the 
child  be  really  interested  in  these  activities;  the  second  is  that 
these  activities  be  so  directed  that  he  will  be  getting  really  valuable 
experiences. 

In  an  attempt  to  work  out  the  problem  of  elementary  education 
from  this  standpoint,  it  was  found  that  children  are  vitally  inter- 
ested in  the  activities  of  their  immediate  environment — domestic, 
social,  industrial,  and  civic.  For  instance,  the  children  made  a 
study  of  foods  and  especially  of  bread.  They  became  interested  in 
the  source  from  which  bread  comes.  They  learned  that  bread  is 
made  of  flour,  that  flour  comes  from  wheat,  that  wheat  is  grown  in 
the  field.  They  studied  the  nature  of  soils,  the  need  of  sunshine 
and  rain  for  the  growing  grain,  sowed  the  grain  in  boxes,  ground 
wheat  between  stones  and  in  a  coffee  mill,  bolted  the  flour  through 
genuine  bolting  cloth,  and  baked  their  flour  into  bread.  It  was 
found  that  the  children  were  intensely  interested  in  all  these  forms 
of  activity.  It  did  give  them  the  answers  to  questions  that  are 
coming  up  in  the  life  of  every  child,  and,  at  the  same  time,  it  gave 
them  a  knowledge  of  industrial  conditions  that  are  an  essential  part 
of  education.  This  is  but  one  of  many  topics  studied.  Others, 
among  food-stuffs,  were  meats,  rice,  and  fruits.  Under  clothing, 
they  studied  wool,  cotton,  and  silk.  Under  shelter,  they  took  up 
house-building,  and  actually  constructed  and  furnished  a  house. 
The  same  general  plan  was  followed  in  the  first  three  grades.  In. 
the  second  and  third  grades  not  so  many  topics  were  taken  up,  but 
those  selected  were  studied  more  thoroughly.  The  results  were 
very  satisfactory. 

Along  with  this  study  of  an  interesting  conterit  were  taught  the 
formal    subjects    of    reading,    writing,    arithmetic,    and   language. 


THE  LOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY  57 

These  were  taught  in  immediate  relation  to  their  use,  and  not  until 
needed.  In  the  teaching  of  reading,  the  purpose  was  to  get  the 
content.  The  emphasis  was  always  on  what  the  child  reads  rather 
than  how.  The  child  learned  to  read  in  order  to  get  the  story- 
told.  In  number  work,  during  the  first  two  years,  he  was  expected 
to  perform  only  those  number  operations  called  for  in  his  ordinary 
school  activities.  It  was  found  that  by  taking  note  of  these  demands 
for  number  operations,  the  child  learned  to  count,  to  read  and  write 
numbers,  to  perform  simple  fundamental  operations,  and  this  in  a 
most  naive  concrete  way.  This  gave  him  an  excellent  foundation 
for  the  abstract  number  work  of  the  higher  grades.  Language 
work  was  treated  in  a  similar  way.  Everything  was  taught  with  a 
view  to  the  purpose  it  was  to  fulfil,  and  when  the  demand  for  it 
arose.  The  teaching  of  this  formal  side  of  education  was  made 
incidental  to  the  child's  development,  but  it  was  in  no  sense 
accidental. 

As  the  child  advances  through  the  grades,  gradually  his  intel- 
lectual life  becomes  more  complex  and  there  is  possible  a  wider  and 
wider  separation  of  means  and  ends,  and  yet  the  child  see  the 
vital  relation  of  means  to  end.  For  instance,  the  child  will  come  to 
feel  the  need  of  learning  abstract  number  operations  and  become 
interested  in  them,  just  because  he  does  realize  the  value  of  them  in 
his  life.  There  comes  a  time,  then,  for  the  study  of  these  "detached" 
spheres  of  knowledge.  But  the  point  is  they  must  never  become 
really  detached.     This  is  of  vital  importance. 

This  attempt  is  only  a  beginning,  but  it  is  believed  that  it  is  in 
the  right  direction.  There  is  a  strong  tendency  in  modern  educa- 
tion, especially  in  America,  toward  a  saner  method  in  education. 
The  tendency  toward  the  laboratory  method  is  one  indication  of 
this  movement.  The  child  must  have  the  means  for  the  solution  of 
his  problems.  These  problems  grow  out  of  the  child's  contact  with 
nature  and  the  industrial  processes  by  which  man  controls  nature, 
and  out  of  his  relation  to  social  institutions.  As  the  child's  real 
problems  g^ow  out  of  his  practical  experience,  so  must  he  find  their 
answer  in  practical  experience.  On  the  industrial  side  he  must 
have  opportunity  to  study  the  products  themselves  and  actually  to 
perform  processes  of  manufacture.  In  seeing,  handling,  doing, 
the  child  gets  control  of,  and  so  understands,  his  environment. 
The  laboratory  method  gives  this  opportunity. 


58  THE  LOGICAL   BASIS   OF   EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

Serious  difficulties  hinder  the  carrying  out  of  this  method  of 
education.  There  must  be  a  change  in  textbooks.  Most  books  in 
use  have  been  written  from  the  social  point  of  view ;  they  lay  stress 
upon  information  and  upon  authority.  There  must  be  books  to 
which  the  child  may  go  for  information  as  he  needs  it,  but  not  text- 
books that  profess  to  exhaust  a  subject,  and  that  are  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  child  for  him  to  "learn."  The  child  must  study  his 
problems  first-hand.  The  textbook  should  be  an  aid  to  this  study. 
Further,  our  school  buildings  must  be  planned  differently. 
The  memoritor-in formation  idea  seems  to  dominate  school  archi- 
tects. The  laboratory  method,  the  study  of  material  at  first-hand, 
the  working  out  of  industrial  processes,  the  possession  of  a  "work- 
ing" library  to  which  the  child  may  go  as  he  needs  information,  all 
necessitate  a  radical  change  in  school  architecture.  Above  all,  the 
school  building  must  be  a  workshop  provided  with  the  necessary 
books,  tools,  and  material. 

The  best  methods  of  today  point  in  the  direction  here  suggested. 
The  organization  of  the  schools  on  a  sound  logical  basis  is  the  para- 
mount problem  that  confronts  education. 

It  is  not  forgotten  that  moral  development  is  a  fundamental  con- 
sideration in  education.  Thought  normally  issues  in  practical  con- 
duct. But  the  purpose  of  this  paper  has  been  to  point  out  the 
logical  basis  of  education,  not  the  ethical.  That  task  is  left  to 
other  hands. 


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